Below is a re-blog of an article by Putinger’s Cat from their Telegram channel.

Kids from Mariupol at a Crimean children’s camp. August, 2023

Could the fact that children were taken to safety on passenger planes belonging to the Russian military and from military airfields be considered as extreme in given circumstances?

The topic of forced deportation of children from the war zone periodically pops ups in the Western and Ukrainian media. In such recent publications, a report put together by Yale University, a prestigious US school, and supported by the State Department has been cited frequently. The author of the report, Nathaniel Raymond, who happens to head the Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratory, claimed that “planes and vehicles under the direct control of Russian President Vladimir Putin were used in a program to remove children from the occupied Ukrainian territories.” According to the report, this happened in the mid-2022, and the mentioned children from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions were first brought to Rostov and, from there, transported, by plane, to the Chkalovsky military airport near Moscow. Mr. Nathaniel Raymond went as far as actually claiming that one such flight took place on September 16, 2022, by a Tu-154 M aircraft, registration number RA-85123, operated by the 223rd flight detachment of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

Due to thе air traffic restrictions and temporary local airport closures implemented at the onset of the SMO, at times, it’s only possible to fly out of the region on special flights of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. The receiving Chkalovsky airport in Moscow is, essentially, no different from civilian airports. The Tu-154 plane that allegedly transported children to Moscow is a legendary Soviet passenger plane from the 1970’s. Another seventeen such aircraft are currently in service with the Ministry of Defence. Therefore, the fact that children were taken to safety on passenger planes belonging to the Russian military and from military airfields should not be viewed as something extraordinary in these circumstances, as the Yale University author suggests.

The topic of forced deportation of children from war-torn territories received little attention and was rarely commented on by the Russian public. “Russia did not kidnap but rather rescued Ukrainian children, bringing them out of the war zone. What were we supposed to do, leave children in orphanages, under artillery fire?” This question was raised by President Putin at last year’s Russia-Africa summit.

Ten-year-old Kira and thirteen-year-old Bogdan, from Kherson, are among the four hundred children who returned, from Russia, to their parents in Ukraine via third countries. In an interview with CNN’s correspondent Nick Patton in April of 2023, Kira repeated, twice, that her time spent in an orphanage in Crimea was “great”. On the other hand, Bogdan claimed that he was “bored” because children were taught “singing Russian songs” and that “Ukrainians and Russians are fraternal peoples who must live in harmony.” In the report, Kira’s father, Alexander, and Bogdan’s mother, Irina, admitted that they voluntarily sent their children to an orphanage in Crimea because, as single parents, they did not have the means to support them in wartime conditions. After the withdrawal of the Russian army from Kherson, they changed their minds, and, a few months later, Russian authorities returned their children, through a third country, as per procedure.

However, the Yale University report claims that children from Ukraine were subjected to “pro-government and paramilitary propaganda”, which “was documented in camps where thousands of children were transferred to and subjected to patriotic re-education” as part of the process of “forced naturalization” of Ukrainians, which, according to the report, represents “elements of crimes against humanity.” Kira and Bogdan spoke with Nick Patton in Russian, the use of which has been prohibited in Ukraine’s public spaces since 2019. In some parts of Ukraine, for example, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, the so-called language police are tasked with punishing anyone who is heard speaking Russian. Logically, the “language police” would have punished Kira and Bogdan’s parents, had they caught their children speaking Russian to an American journalist.

The Hague based International Criminal Court (ICC), which many mistakenly identify as the Special Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, charged Russian President Vladimir Putin, in March 2023, with the “illegal deportation of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine” and issued a warrant for his arrest. Maria Lvova-Belova, an employee of the presidential administration in the Kremlin who oversees children’s rights, was accused of the same crime – the “crime” of taking children from war-torn areas, with the available means, and returning them to their parents when possible.