Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights denies wrongdoing after being accused of war crimes

The allegations relate to what Kyiv describes as the mass abduction of some 19,544 Ukrainian children following the February 2022 invasion.

Lvova-Belova’s ICC arrest warrant states that she bears “individual criminal responsibility” for the “unlawful deportation and transfer of children” from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

However, Russia has taken a hardline approach to what it deems to be international meddling, completely disregarding the charges laid down by the ICC.

Lvova-Belova – who joins Russian President Vladimir Putin on the list of Russians accused of war crimes – admits that several thousand children were brought to Russia to escape the worst of the conflict, which began when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

The children were brought from areas like Mariupol, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv, and placed in what were meant to be short-term summer camps, spanning from Russian-occupied Crimea all the way to eastern Siberia.

“I’m a mother. That says it all. A war criminal? What are you talking about?” she said in an interview with Vice Media.

“Firstly, Russia does not recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court,” she said. “I do not fully understand what they are accusing us of – there was no official document.”

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have placed Lvova-Belova on a sanctions list, among several other high ranking Russians.

Some parents in Russian-controlled areas allowed their children to leave, fearing for their safety at home as bombs dropped from the sky. But others say they were deceived or coerced into parting with their kids.

However, under the Geneva Conventions, children can only be deported temporarily on humanitarian grounds and should be sent to a third-party country, not the warring aggressor.

Many children have found themselves stuck in territory annexed by Russia, subjected to pro-Russian propaganda in camps and fast-tracked for Russian passports.

Lvova-Belova denies the accusations of deportation and brainwashing, stating that the children were from regions that had recognised themselves as part of Russia. According to the commissioner, these children spoke Russian and had families who had expressed a desire for Ukraine to integrate.

“The situation was tense,” says Lvova-Belova, “The children did not go outside, the children were constantly in a very difficult psychological state … And when the parents were offered to send them on vacation for free, of course, everyone immediately agreed with joy.

“These are children from those regions that have recognised themselves as Russia … These are Russian-speaking children, these are children and parents who have expressed a desire to become one big Russia.”

She acknowledges that 380 children from what she calls Russia’s “new territories” have now been fostered by Russian families, after she asked President Putin to sign a decree last year streamlining the process for Ukrainian children to obtain Russian passports.

Despite the seriousness of the charges against her, Lvova-Belova maintains that her actions were not politically motivated.

She claims that they were only motivated by love and empathy for the children and a desire to protect them. She went as far as saying that the claims of abuse and mistreatment of Ukrainian children in Russian camps are “absurd” and ”fake accusations.”

Her comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted a special tribunal must be formed to hold Russia to account for its “crime of aggression”.

“There should be responsibility for this crime. And this can only be enforced by the tribunal,” he told diplomats and officials after visiting the International Criminal Court.

“Of course, we all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague. The one who deserves to be sentenced for his criminal actions right here in the capital of the international law.

“Only one Russian crime led to all of these crimes: this is the crime of aggression, the start of evil, the primary crime. There should be responsibility for this crime.”

In March, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for a “concerted international effort” to return forcibly deported children and urged Russia to publish information on their whereabouts.

“Returning children who were illegally taken by Russian forces should be an international priority,” said Bill Van Esveld, HRW associate director for children‘s rights.

Ukraine‘s presidential commissioner for children’s rights, Daria Gerasymchuk, said Russia was refusing to recognise that these children were “deportees”.

Kyiv is pressing for a special tribunal to be set up to prosecute Moscow for the crime of aggression because it sees this as a way to achieve faster justice and more easily target the Kremlin’s top officials.

The ICC, based in The Hague, is currently probing possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war on Ukraine but it has no mandate to pursue the broader crime of aggression.

Some of Kyiv’s Western backers have said it may be hard to get broad international backing for a one-off tribunal and say a more feasible approach could be to set up a “hybrid” court under Ukrainian law.