Thirty-five Ukrainian children, aged 6 to 17, who were forcibly separated from their parents and taken to Belarus, are undergoing training under the guidance of Belarusian military. The children were abducted from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Antratsyt and sent to the Belarusian city of Mogilev.
Belarus sends Ukrainian children abducted by Putin for military trainings
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has sent a group of Ukrainian children abducted from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to train with the Belarusian military, according to the local media on January 10.
The group includes 35 children from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Antratsyt, who were sent to the Belarusian city of Mogilev.
According to state-run TV channel Belarus 1, the military "teach children how to behave in extreme situations".
The children were taken under the care of the Belarusian Ministry of Emergency Situations, the report said.
2,400 Ukrainian children from TOT were forcibly transferred to Belarus
A study by Yale University found that more than 2,400 Ukrainian children aged 6 to 17 were brought to Belarus from four Ukrainian regions partially occupied by Russian troops.
The Belarusian opposition has called on the International Criminal Court to bring Lukashenko and his officials to justice for their involvement in the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.
In March last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, accusing them of war crimes — illegal transfer of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow denies these accusations.
Lukashenko personally met abducted children from Ukraine
According to AP journalists, the Belarusian dictator is now openly ignoring the international community's outrage over his involvement in the abduction and re-education of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories.
During a speech on the occasion of the arrival in Belarus of a new group of Ukrainian children abducted by Russian war criminals from the occupied territories, Lukashenko cynically stated that he would embrace these children and allegedly help them find a new home and make their childhood happy after they were forcibly abducted and separated from their parents.
Belarusian officials did not specify how many Ukrainian children were brought to the country.
What is known about the Russian abduction of Ukrainian children from TOT
On Children's Day in 2023, the Online.UA team presented the documentary project Crippled Childhood, which tells the stories of Ukrainian children who were abducted and forcibly taken to Russia.
In the film Crippled Childhood, children and their parents openly share their stories: some of them have been in captivity, some have been forcibly taken to a "rehabilitation camp", some have been separated from their parents during so-called filtration measures.
In more than a year and a half of full-scale war, Ukraine has managed to return less than 400 children. At the same time, Russia claims to have "evacuated" 744,000 Ukrainian children.
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