Ukraine’s foreign ministry initiates case against Russian ombudswoman for illegally adopting a Ukrainian child

According to the ministry, the ombudswoman also admitted to facilitating the illegal adoption in Russia of about 350 more children from the occupied regions of the Donbas.

“Transfer of Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia and their subsequent adoption by Russian citizens grossly violate the legislation of Ukraine, as well as the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, which provides for the obligation of the occupying state not to change the civil status of children, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989,” the ministry said in a comment.

Ukrainian diplomats have called on the international community to “strongly condemn the ongoing crimes committed by Russia and its officials against children in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.”

“Ukraine will continue to make every effort to ensure that Ukrainian children who were illegally taken and adopted in Russia are returned to their parents or legal guardians,” reads the report.

.