THE HAGUE – Dozens of sleuths have traced 45 Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia during an open-source investigative blitz hosted by the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol, it said on April 20.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, scores of Ukrainian children – nearly 20,000 according to Kyiv – were forcibly relocated to Russia.
The issue is highly sensitive in Ukraine and remains central to every new round of negotiations for a potential peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.
The Europol effort saw 40 investigators from 18 countries gather in The Hague for two days last week to use publicly-available information known as OSINT (open-source intelligence) to locate some of the children.
“In total, information about 45 children was uncovered and shared with Ukrainian authorities to assist their ongoing investigations,” Europol said in a statement.
“During this hackathon, investigators relied on various digital tools in their searches allowing them to trace the whereabouts of the children,” it said.
“Some of these children have been adopted by Russian nationals, while others are being held in re-education camps or psychiatric hospitals.”
A UN international commission of inquiry recently accused Moscow of committing “crimes against humanity” by forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and obstructing their return.
Russia maintains that it transferred Ukrainian children from captured areas for their own safety and is prepared to return them to their families under conditions it deems appropriate.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ms Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, for alleged war crimes involving the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. AFP
