Switzerland has extended sanctions against Russia over the deportation and Russification of Ukrainian children
This is stated on the Swedish government’s website.
Officials responsible for youth policy in occupied Sevastopol and other Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, as well as teachers and heads of children’s organisations, have been added to the sanctions lists.
These include, in particular:
- Igor Zhuravlev, director of the ‘Smena’ children’s centre;
- Andranik Gasparyan, a Russian military officer who currently heads the ‘Voín’ Centre for Military and Patriotic Education of Youth;
- Yegor Logunov, the so-called ‘occupation minister’ for youth policy in the Zaporizhzhia region;
- Marina Slonchenko, head of the occupying body ‘Department for Youth Affairs of the City of Sevastopol’; and others.
According to the Swiss authorities, they were involved in the propagandistic ‘re-education’ of Ukrainian children. The Swiss authorities stated that these individuals are imposing Russian ideology on Ukrainian children and militarising them as part of the Russian Federation’s state policy.
They are also implicated in the deportation and forced removal of children from Ukrainian territory.
The deportation of Ukrainian children is one of Russia’s war crimes; for this, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the Russian Federation’s Children’s Ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova.
To date, at least 19,546 Ukrainian children are known to have been forcibly deported to Russia, and fewer than 400 of them have been returned. Ukraine also has evidence that Belarus is involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children.
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