Sergei Mironov, leader of the party A Just Russia–Patriots–For Truth, and his wife adopted a child taken out of Ukraine. The ten-month-old girl’s personal data was completely changed. Now she bears the surname Mironova, and her birthplace is listed as Podolsk, a city in the Moscow Region, according to an article by Important Stories.
As the Important Stories reporters discovered, in late August 2022, Mironov’s wife, Inna Varlamova, and Mironov’s first deputy in the State Duma, Yana Lantratova, traveled to the Russian-occupied Kherson Region in Ukraine.
In Kherson, the women visited the regional children’s hospital, among other places. They were escorted by the head of the local orphanage, Tatiana Zavalskaya, who had been appointed by the Russian authorities. They examined the children who had been admitted to the hospital from the orphanage and left.
Subsequently, Zavalskaya ordered the hospital to discharge a ten-month-old girl and a two-year-old boy.
When asked by the head of the hospital’s pediatric department why she should discharge sick children (one of them had bronchitis), Zavalskaya said that “that woman chose them and will take them to Moscow.” Doctors tried to delay discharging the children, but Zavalskaya insisted on speeding up the process.
Officially, the children were taken to Moscow for “tests, determination of further treatment options, and rehabilitation.”
The Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske published similar information in July 2023.
To adopt a child in Russia, you need to apply to the court. Such cases are heard under a special procedure In November 2022, such a case was heard in the Podolsk City Court in the Moscow Region. Inna Varlamova was listed in the case file as an interested party.
Important Stories claims to have paperwork indicating that in December 2022 Mironov and Varlamova adopted a girl taken out of Kherson. At the request of the adoptive parents, the child’s name and place of birth were changed in official documents.
A source familiar with the situation told the reporters that the girl’s biological mother was deprived of custody and her father had died. And yet, the girl has other blood relatives in Ukraine. The whereabouts of the two-year-old boy taken out of Kherson are still unknown. According to Important Stories, in September 2023, the child was issued a birth certificate that indicates he is in the Moscow Region.
Important Stories notes that this is the first confirmed case of adoption of children taken to Russia from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Lawyer Maria Chashchilova told Important Stories that adopting Ukrainian children deported to Russia was a crime from the standpoint of international law.
“It is considered genocide. These children often have relatives or guardians in Ukraine who have lost contact with them, and in the case of children from orphanages, their guardians are the officials at these institutions. According to international law, the parties to the conflict must provide relatives and guardians with information about the missing and assist in their search,” the lawyer noted.
It is very difficult to reverse the adoption of a deported child, the journalists say. This can be done only through the court and on serious grounds such as child abuse, alcoholism or drug addiction on the part of the adoptive parents, or the absence of normal conditions for the child’s development and upbringing.
Commenting on the Important Stories article, Mironova called it a fake “by the Ukrainian special services and their western curators.” “They are pursuing a single goal [with all this ‘mudslinging’]—discrediting those who take an irreconcilably patriotic stance today,” the Russian MP wrote on the social network X.
Sergei Mironov, writing on X earlier today: “A fake by the Ukrainian special services and their western curators. I’m already used to the mudslinging. They are pursuing a single goal with all this—discrediting those who take an irreconcilably patriotic stance today. You’re wasting your time. The truth will win anyway. And Russia will emerge totally victorious in its special military operation.”
Russian children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova did not respond to a request by Important Stories to comment on the article before it was published. Earlier, she said that children removed from the Ukrainian territories not controlled by Kyiv are not adopted but placed in guardianships.
In March of this year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova on charges of illegally sending Ukrainian children to Russia. According to the Ukrainian authorities, since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in 2022, about nineteen thousand children have been removed from Ukraine by Russian authorities. Only a few hundred have been able to return to their homeland. Russian authorities claim that they rescued the children from the fighting and are ready to return those whose parents and guardians petition them.
Source: “‘Important Stories’–MP Mironov adopted little girl from Ukraine,” Radio Svoboda, 23 November 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader
The Gaza Strip is the “most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” the head of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said on Wednesday.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the U.N. Security Council that more than 5,300 Palestinian children had reportedly been killed since Oct. 7 – when Palestinian militants of Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking hostages, most of them civilians.
Israel has focused its retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, a territory of 2.3 million people.
“The true cost of this latest war in Palestine and Israel will be measured in children’s lives – those lost to the violence and those forever changed by it. Without an end to the fighting and full humanitarian access, the cost will continue to grow exponentially,” Russell, who last week visited Gaza, said at a council briefing on women and children there.
Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air, imposed a siege and invaded with soldiers and tanks.
“The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,” Russell said. “In Gaza, the effects of the violence perpetrated on children have been catastrophic, indiscriminate and disproportionate.”
Israel agreed on Wednesday to a ceasefire with Hamas for four days to let in humanitarian aid and free at least 50 hostages held by militants in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.
“Women in Gaza have told us that they pray for peace, but that if peace does not come, they pray for a quick death, in their sleep, with their children in their arms. It should shame us all that any mother, anywhere, has such a prayer,” U.N. Women Executive Director Sima Bahous told the 15-member council.
ISRAEL ACCUSES HAMAS OF EXPLOITING CHILDREN
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan accused Hamas of exploiting children in Gaza for years and repeated long-held criticisms that the United Nations is biased against Israel.
“Make no mistake as soon as the pause ends, we will continue striving towards our goals with full force,” he said. “We will not stop until we eliminate all of Hamas’ terror capabilities and ensure that they can no longer rule Gaza and threaten both Israeli civilians and the women and children of Gaza.”
Hamas denies operating from places such as hospitals in Gaza and denies using civilians as human shields.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the ceasefire agreement as “an important step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done to end the suffering.”
There are 5,500 pregnant women expected to give birth in Gaza in the coming month, the head of the U.N Population Fund (UNFPA), the world body’s sexual and reproductive health agency, told the Security Council.
“Every day approximately 180 women deliver under appalling conditions, the future for their newborns uncertain,” said Executive-Director Natalia Kanem, adding that UNFPA was also worried about some 7,000 women who gave birth over the past 47 days and lack access to care, water, sanitation and nutrition.
