Russia’s removal of children from Ukraine is a war crime: conclusion of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism
Russia committed a war crime by taking children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
This conclusion was recorded in the report of the expert group of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism.
On May 4, a mission of experts from the OSCE Moscow Mechanism presented a report to the OSCE Permanent Council on violations and abuses of international humanitarian and human rights, war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the forced transfer and/or deportation of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation.
The document states that the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and to the territories controlled by the Russian Federation may be considered crimes against humanity.
Experts note that “the exact numbers are not yet known, but the fact of large-scale deportations is not denied by either Ukraine or Russia.”
The OSCE Moscow Mechanism was deployed on March 30, 2023, after consultations with Ukraine, to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding possible violations of Russia’s OSCE commitments. The expert group included three legal experts from Latvia, Norway and the Czech Republic, who were tasked by 45 of the 57 OSCE member states to investigate the allegations against Russia.
