Questions about Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children? Ask them for our next episode of ‘This Week in Ukraine’
Dear Kyiv Independent community members,
We need your questions for the next episode of “This Week in Ukraine.” The topic this week is Russia’s abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.
To send in your questions, you can leave them in the comments below, message us on Patreon, or email community manager Brooke at brooke@kyivindependent.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
Episode 12, “Ukraine’s counteroffensive finally began. What’s next?” is linked above. The episode is available on YouTube and on listening platforms, with your questions starting at 29:30.
Ukraine's counteroffensive finally began. What's next? | This Week in Ukraine Ep. 12 (YouTube)
Comments (8)
In the 1990s and 2000s Russia itself was a major source for adoption into the USA and other western countries. But one retaliatory result of the USA passing the Magnitsky Act was that Russia (Putin) banned the adoption of Russian orphans to the USA around 2013. Given that not too long ago so many of Russia's own orphans had to be adopted outside of Russia, how many Ukrainian "orphans" are being placed with families in Russia, or are many ending up in State run child labor situations.
These are some great questions. They make me wonder about the "War orphans" during and after the Vietnam War. I was a very young child at the time, but I remember fund raisers and adoption pushes to save the orphans. I have three family members who were adopted from Russia. My most prominent memories of those experiences where how genuine the staff of the orphanages were to do the best they could with their limited resources... and how shady the people facilitating the adoption often seemed.
3. What happens to the children when they get to Russia, such as are younger children adopted into Russian families, and older children kept in large orphanagaes? Or are they primarily targeting younger children?
2. How many of the children taken are legitimate orphans, and how many are taken from living parents as some sort of punishment for resisting Russification? Is there a known break down?
1. Do they have a complete list of identities documented by name and family, original location etc. of the children taken from Ukraine to Russia, such that there may be DNA matching at some later point?
Good morning, Kyiv Independent. Thanks for the opportunity to ask a question. How can Europeans and friends of Ukraine around the world pressure our governments & media to do all they can to get every single child home? What specific and strategic actions, legislative or otherwise, does Ukraine ask of us?
The drip, drip, drip of flaccid NATO support delayed the offensive.
I encourage caution when using snark, particularly from the media, to blame Ukraine's allies for the current situation. As much as one might like to say. "When we kick out the Russians, everything will be perfect." For the past 30 years, Ukraine has been a failed state captured by kleptocracy. Unless reform happens, Ukraine will likely revert to its past status if and when the Russians are expelled. Thus, Ukraine has two equally important challenges: 1. Fight Corruption. 2. Fight the Russians. The part that is hardest to admit is that removing corruption is nearly impossible once it is established. Thus there must be an incentive. In the case of Ukraine that incentive is foreign support. Over the course of the war, there has been a direct correlation between concrete reform and foreign aid. The question becomes: Is it more productive to: 1. Blame donors for not giving aid quickly enough? 2. Blame corrupt individuals for blocking that aid via their actions? 3. Blame the larger population for their willingness to look the other way about corruption? When looking at corruption, I encourage people to look into the unusable military equipment given to Ukraine. Early on, several European nations, some of Ukraine's most vocal supporters, dumped their old, outdated, and sometimes broken equipment on Ukraine. The understanding was that the EU would reimburse them at 86% of whatever they reported the value of that equipment. A couple of countries made out like bandits while looking like generous heroes. Delivering $10s of billions of dollars in aid requires care and oversight by all parties involved. Edit for full disclosure: The United States Military does not appear to be completely transparent in how it communicates the value of its donations either. Often equipment donations go on the books at the full cost of new, modernized equipment rather than an assessed current value.