Kidnapping Of Children In Ukraine. Whose Fault Is It? Thanks to Maraffino’s Reportage, A Piece Of Truth

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Written by Piero Messina

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, if the mad destruction is cultivated in the name of totalitarianism, rather than the holy one of freedom or in the name of democracy? “ When fighting, no one thinks of the words of Mahatma Gandhi. Children are the first victims of war. What is happening in Ukraine is yet another demonstration that the most vulnerable people, and children in particular, are the collateral victims of a military clash. Kiev and Moscow accuse each other of violations of international rights and of mass kidnappings and deportations of minors. 

Today, thanks to the precious work of volunteers and researchers engaged in the field we can access new testimonies. And this is the case of the work carried out by Rossella Maraffino. Before telling what Maraffino discovered, it is correct to summarize what has been said and written about this story.

The Western version accuses the Kremlin leaders.  Precisely on this issue, the International Criminal Court has impeached Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. On March 17 2022, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova. They were charged with being responsible for the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, a war crime under international legislation.

The accusations against Moscow were mainly based on information gathered by Kateryna Rashevska, legal expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights. Rashevska reported that Russian Federation agents have taken at least 19,546 children to that country from Ukraine since 18 February 2022.  Among other violations, Russian Federation citizenship is imposed on them, and they are forbidden to speak and learn the Ukrainian language or preserve their Ukrainian identity.

“Leaving Ukrainian children in Russia means continuing to violate their rights,” she stressed, urging the Council “to assist in the return of Ukrainian children”.

There is, however, a completely opposite version, a version that sees the Kiev police force involved in the kidnappings and deportation of minors.

In a report published in a Russian media outlet, Canadian correspondent Eva Bartlett presented accurate information about the reality of the city of Artyomovsk (called “Bakhmut” by Ukrainians), which was recently liberated by Russian forces. Local witnesses informed the journalist that before the Russian victory they had suffered all sorts of abuses by Ukrainian troops, including bombing of residential areas and even kidnapping of children.

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According to several interviews, there were several kidnappings carried out by the Ukrainian military police, mainly by the so-called “White Angels”, which are special teams of “volunteers” whose alleged function is to carry out evacuation operations. In April, the Ukrainian government announced the “evacuation” of 126 children from territories considered “occupied” (those reintegrated into the Russian Federation). The interviewed families revealed that in practice such an “evacuation” is simply a kidnapping, since the “White Angels” take the children by force and take them to unknown regions.

“It was February and the White Angels started coming, then other groups came. They said that the Verkhovna Rada had decreed that we had no right to be here and that we were exposing our child to active hostilities”, a woman called Yulia told journalists.

“They were taking children away. They would come at 6pm, sometimes at 10pm. (…) They called themselves volunteers, but they were not, they were the SBU or maybe some other organization that collects information (…) They had a list of people, they knew who lived where and how many people were there (…) Volunteers came in a car, gave out some boxes, gathered information, and then with this information, people in uniform would come running and looking for children.”

The “White Angels” of the Ukrainian police force are suspected to kidnap children from Donbass, take them away against the will of their families and take them far away. We no longer know anything about many of them, some, however, managed to return home and reunite with their parents. These are stories that Western mainstream journalists do not want or cannot tell. Indeed, in some cases, the narrative is distorted and the “White Angels” become dispensers of salvation, care and relief for civilian populations.

But now there is another one evidence of a “non tellable” truth. Rossella Maraffino, activist and videomaker, has been involved in volunteering and solidarity missions in Donbass for years. In the days spent in the territories put under pressure by clashes between Ukrainian and Russian forces, Maraffino managed to document on video the testimonies of some minors who ended up under the “protection” of the White Angels.

“Already from the first months of 2022  Media provided us with data on the exodus of children from Donbass to the Russian Federation. However, in addition to the data that has never been confirmed, during this year there have been several cases of reporting, including by the Ukrainian authorities themselves, of illegal trafficking of minors. We wanted to delve deeper into this topic by interviewing the commissioner of children’s rights of the Lugansk Republic Inna Schevnk, a military expert of the Lugansk Republic V. Kiselev and Kira, a 13-year-old girl who, together with her 10 school friends with the excuse of the evacuation of Šastje on March 22 she was picked up from school and, without documents, other personal effects or the authorization of her family members, she was transported in stages to Lviv” , this is what Maraffino tells us.

Kira, in the end, through a thousand ordeals, managed to return home:

“Kira’s mother, after months and endless bureaucratic procedures, manages to recover her daughter. Kira’s mother discovered that her daughter had new documents, in which the girl was registered as an orphan. Everything was ready to start an adoption procedure abroad.“

There is no longer any trace of the other children, Kira’s schoolmates. Obviously, one cannot be absolutely certain that the White Angels are responsible. But suspicion is often the precursor to the truth.

For sure, it is always the most fragile people who pay for the damages of military conflicts. Everyone knows that child trafficking existed in Donbass. Even USAid, the American NGO, had discussed a dossier before the start of the special military operation in Ukraine in February last year. Now that Russia has become public enemy number 1 for the West, the trafficking of Ukrainian children should no longer be talked about. Or, we only talk about it by blaming the Russian army for these crimes.

“The practice of kidnapping minors in Donbass seems to be very common – underlines Maraffino – and the “White Angels” special unit, part of the Ukrainian police, is accused of taking children without the families’ authorization and without following a protocol for maintain contact with families of origin, especially in rural areas and/or in situations of socio-economic hardship. There are several testimonies that have been recorded from many areas of the region: what is the truth?”

Rossella Maraffino’s reporting work in Donbass was not limited to shedding light on the fate of the kidnapped children. Maraffino is cataloging all the testimonies collected, with the aim of making a documentary on what is happening.

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