From the children’s home in Luhansk to a Siberian foster family

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There are 16 children living in the Winogradow family of pastors in Novosibirsk, Siberia: four of them, seven Russian foster children and, recently, five Ukrainians. “Nationality does not matter,” says Yekatarina Vinogradova, she only wants to help children in need. The Ukrainian government and human rights organizations see it differently: they accuse Russia of abducting thousands of children.

There is snow around the big house of the pastor’s family, the Ukrainian children play happily with the sledge, later they help to prepare the food. The five are half-siblings, four girls and one boy between the ages of three and twelve.

The Vinogradovs are experienced foster parents. “The youth care office called and asked: ‘Do you also take in children from Ukraine?'” says the 38-year-old mother. “We said yes. What does it matter? Children are children – everywhere.” Six months ago, the five half-siblings were taken from Moscow, 3,000 kilometers away, to the pastor’s home in Siberia.

«The Russians are hiding our children»

The children come from children’s homes in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, the foster parents say, on presentation of foster care documents issued by the pro-Russian city government. The siblings still have to get used to living in a family, says Protestant minister Roman Vinogradow. They kept asking for reassurance that “this is their home” and that they would actually be picked up from preschool.

The children no longer remembered their mother in Ukraine, says the 41-year-old. “At some point, of course, they will ask questions,” says his wife. “Then we’ll find the mother and maybe organize a meeting.”

Under international law, no party to a conflict may evacuate children to another country – except for compelling reasons of health and safety, and then only temporarily. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week spoke of Russia’s “kidnapping, forced adoption and re-education of Ukrainian children”, calling it “a war crime and a crime against humanity”.

Ukraine has information about 16,000 children brought to Russia, said Ukrainian President’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Daria Gerasymchuk. So far, 308 children have been returned. Kiev has identified 43 camps of children in Russia, Gerasymchuk says. “But the children are constantly being moved. The Russians are hiding our children.”

In a report published Monday, the human rights group Human Rights Watch called for a “coordinated international effort” to bring back deported children and asked Russia for information on the whereabouts of the children. Moscow claims that Russia only accepts refugee children from Ukraine.

The kidnapped children are certainly not just orphans, says Gerasymtschuk. Only 138 of the 16,000 abductees came out of homes. “The Russians use at least five different scenarios to deport children,” she says. For example, children are separated from their parents at border checks, or taken directly from their families to allegedly be laid to rest. Ukraine has tried to hide children in homes from the occupiers by placing them with Ukrainian foster homes, the children’s rights official says.

But that didn’t always work out – as in the case of the five half-siblings who now live in Siberia. “I didn’t steal a child,” says her Russian foster father. “And the kids don’t think they were stolen either.” (AFP)

Source: Blick