Over 2,400 Ukrainian Children Forcibly Transported to Belarus, Study Finds
Coordinated by Putin and Lukashenko, the children are subjected to re-education and military training, raising questions of international criminal prosecution.
- A study by Yale University has found that over 2,400 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transported to Belarus from regions of Ukraine partially occupied by Russian forces.
- The study suggests that the operation is coordinated by Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Belarus' authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, with Belarus playing a direct role in the forced deportation of children.
- The children, including those with disabilities, were taken from 17 cities in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine between February 2022 and October 2023.
- The children are reportedly subjected to re-education and military training in Belarus, with some taken to the Dubrava children’s center in the Minsk region of Belarus, while others were brought to 13 other facilities across the country.
- Ukrainian authorities are investigating the deportations as possible genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Putin and his children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for their alleged involvement in crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine.
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