Who is Putin’s child smuggler?

Marija Lwova-Belowa travels a lot and would have been in the car when she heard the news: Russian President Vladimir Putin is wanted under an international arrest warrant – and so is she. The “Commissioner for the Rights of the Child” is wanted as a suspected war criminal.

Who is the convinced Christian, who comes from a poor background, who actually did a lot for children, but who is now on the same level as Putin because of the kidnapping of minors?

Marija Lwova-Belowa’s life, which has been going on for 38 years, revolves exclusively around children. When she was young, she never really dreamed of a career, but always thought of a big family. She was a guitar teacher when at the age of 19 she married a man who was active in the Russian Orthodox Church – today her husband is a priest. The fact that they both dreamed of a big family would eventually have brought them together – Lwowa-Belowa’s supposed condition for a second date: at least three children in the future.

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Since 2021 “Commissioner for Human Rights”

This can be read in a long portrait published on the Russian portal “Verstka” by a journalist critical of the Kremlin. There you can also learn that Lwowa-Belowa has built several facilities for severely disabled children over the years with government and money from oligarchs. On the other hand, she allegedly ignored a call from 115 Russian NGOs asking the Kremlin to do more to help people with disabilities. Not everyone who works for and with children in Russia sees her as an ally.

Another reason why the photogenic woman of Russia’s governing party “United Russia” was appointed “Commissioner for the Rights of the Child” by Putin in 2021 and enjoys support from the Russian Orthodox Church is probably her own family.

Five of her own and four adopted children lived with her, and she also took over custody of 13 children with disabilities, Lwowa-Belowa said after her appointment. Philip has since added: The 15-year-old is from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol – and exemplifies the Russian story of supposedly rescued children and youth who are now said to have a better life in Russia.

In a video from the nationalist broadcaster Tsargrad, Philipp talks about the oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev that his Ukrainian foster family left him alone during the war. His new Russian adoptive mother Lwova-Belowa, whom he calls “Masha” – a pet name for Maria – is “the most radiant person I have ever met in my life. I have never had anyone who loves me as much as she does.” A child “rescued” from Ukraine and now with a “brighter future” in Russia.

Already in the first days of the war, hundreds of children from the occupied parts of Ukraine were “evacuated”, as mentioned, across the Russian border. However, not only Ukraine speaks of “deportations” in these cases; This term is also used in the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that more than 16,000 children may have been abducted to Russia. An American study estimates that 6,000 minors are affected.

Most of the children would initially have been housed in temporary accommodation in recreation centers and children’s facilities – and then integrated into Russian families. On March 11, about two weeks after the start of the Russian offensive war in Ukraine, Lvowa-Belova made it clear for the first time that Ukrainian orphans would be handed over to Russian families. Putin “unconditionally supported this decision” and told her to “act in the best interests of the children”.

Since then, countless users of the Russian search engine Yandex have searched for information on how to attract Ukrainian children. “Record a child from Donbass” has been searched over 30,000 times. Most studies focused on the first months of the war.

Russians want to “take in a child from the Donbass”

The Ukraine has now become a self-service shop for Russian families wanting children – and Marija Lwova-Belowa is the woman orchestrating the kidnapping system behind it. Meanwhile, the “Commissioner for the Rights of the Child” boasts that she gave “not 100 percent, but 150 percent” after the special operation.

She herself likes to be photographed when she accompanies Ukrainian children to Russia – in public and easy to prove. This could explain why the child abduction was the first of several alleged war crimes that resulted in arrest warrants from The Hague.

«Patriotic» education in Russia

Lwova-Belowa now speaks of “our children” and is excited about how quickly the children have adapted to their new Russian life. “They even resemble their adoptive parents,” Putin’s children’s representative said. According to Lwova-Belowa, the children will immediately receive Russian citizenship and then be “brought up patriotically” – in their forced new homeland, which has enormous demographic problems.

Lwowa-Belowa responded with biting irony to the arrest warrant from The Hague on Friday. “It is great that the international community has recognized the work we do for the children of our country, that we do not leave them in the war zones, that we take them out, that we create good conditions for them, that we surround them .” them with love,” she said. Even before the arrest warrant came out, she was under several sanctions, including from the European Union.

But the message from the International Criminal Court may still make some Russian officials think. At least that is the assumption of opposition politician and former State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov, who now lives in exile. On Facebook, he described the arrest warrant for Putin’s “Children’s Commissioner” as a “wake-up call”. For many Russians in the state apparatus, the question now arises: “Who could be next?” In any case, the following applies to Lwowa-Belowa: she must now expect to be arrested in 123 countries around the world. (t-online/law)