During the second one spherical of direct talks in Istanbul on Monday, Ukraine passed over to Russia an inventory of its forcefully deported youngsters.
Kyiv desires Moscow to go back them to Ukraine, reiterating its dedication to carry the forcefully deported youngsters again as one of the crucial key facets of a conceivable ceasefire and a peace deal in the longer term.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation Rustem Umerov mentioned, “If Russia is genuinely committed to a peace process, the return of at least half the children on this list is positive”.
The Russian delegation leader Vladimir Medinsky confirmed the listing, which accommodates the names of 339 kidnapped Ukrainian youngsters.
The Kremlin consultant accused Ukraine of “staging a show on the topic of lost children aimed at kind-hearted Europeans.” In his phrases, Kyiv is making an attempt to “squeeze out a tear by raising this issue.”
According to Medinsky, each and every title at the listing will probably be “worked out”.
“Whether there are children with similar surnames and first names somewhere in our institutions, further applications from parents or legal relatives should be attached to this,” he added.
“It’s not that they are in our facilities. It means that (the whereabouts) of these children is unknown. Maybe (they are) in Ukraine, maybe somewhere else, maybe in Norway,” Medinsky said.
Euronews sources familiar with this aspect of the negotiations say Moscow knows exactly where every child on that list is.
Kyiv’s list of forcefully deported children
Kyiv and Moscow have never raised the issue of Ukrainian children forcefully deported by Russia in a direct format.
Ukraine has been able to verify Russia’s deportation of over 19,500 children to date. These are the children for whom detailed information has been collected — their place of residence in Ukraine and their territorial location in Russia are known.
Only 1,350 have been returned, and each return is mediated by a third-party state, notably by Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican.
The Russian delegation was therefore surprised, as it didn’t expect to get the list of names from Kyiv during the direct talks in Istanbul on Monday.
Euronews sources familiar with the matter said Moscow said it was ready to return 10 children, but that Kyiv has a “other place and expectancies” when it comes to “demonstrating just right religion in continuing with the peace procedure”.
When asked why Kyiv didn’t present a more extensive list, given that 339 names are less than 2% of the total number of forcefully taken children, Euronews sources explained it was a decision based on previous experience.
“There is a risk that Moscow would try to buy time claiming it takes longer to check the names, while trying to change the identities of Ukrainian children further, making it impossible to track,” the source said.
Russia is deliberately erasing the identity of the illegally deported children, according to Ukraine’s deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa.
The names and IDs are being changed, especially when it comes to younger kids, who have been forced into adoption in Russia.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War think tank (ISW) stated that stealing the children was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s priorities, referring to the revelations of Ukrainian human rights activists.
The ISW uncovered Kremlin documents dated 18 February 2022, which laid out plans to remove Ukrainian children from orphanages in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions and bring them to Russia under the guise of “humanitarian evacuations”.
Euronews sources familiar with this aspect of negotiations said that Kyiv’s list also contains the names of the children who have not yet been moved to Russia and remain on the temporarily occupied territories.
“These are not only children who have been physically moved to the territory of Russia, but also those who are now trapped under Russian occupation and control while remaining on Ukrainian territories, temporarily occupied by Russia,” they said.
Deadline and conditions for the return of Ukrainian children
When Ukraine and Russia met in Istanbul for the first time on 16 May, they agreed on the prisoners of war exchange, which took place within 10 days after the talks.
Another POW swap was agreed upon at the second round of talks on Monday, when Ukraine passed on the list of the deported children to Russia.
Kyiv now hopes Moscow will return the abducted kids as soon as possible, without further delays.
Without much progress on the military side of the negotiations, this is an opportunity for Moscow to demonstrate its “goodwill” on the humanitarian aspect.
“If they wish to display it, they are going to in finding find out how to reveal their just right religion with out additional delays and end up it briefly,” Euronews sources said, reiterating that Moscow knows where these children are.
Russia also can do it with the mediation of Qatar, South Africa or the Vatican, the countries which have assisted Kyiv in the past with the return of the Ukrainian children.
In its “peace memorandum” proposal, Moscow has now not toned down any of its maximalist calls for referring to battlefield and territorial concessions, and nonetheless calls for that Ukraine cede its territories, together with the ones it hasn’t ever managed.
With force from america and new, harder sanctions looming, Moscow should come to a decision whether or not to continue at the humanitarian monitor with Kyiv, for the reason that that is the one facet of the direct talks that has yielded tangible effects because the negotiations resumed.
The subsequent, 3rd spherical of negotiations is predicted to happen on the finish of June.
