Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of abducting more than 1.2 million children during the invasion of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has abducted 121,000 Ukrainian children for adoption by Russian families, according to United Nations Ambassador to Ukraine Sergiy Kyslytsya.
The abducted children were taken from the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol to the city of Daganrok, 70 miles from Russia, said Sergei Kislytsia.
According to intelligence sources, the aim is to adopt Ukrainian children into Russian families.
According to reports, children are said to have been effectively stolen just as Russian soldiers looted television sets and air conditioners from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Putin is said to have stepped up adoption procedures for orphaned children in Russia.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children left their homes six weeks ago after the Russian invasion.
Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s director of emergency programs, said he had heard reports that children had been taken to Russia. He also said that there was no official evidence of this and that we were trying to find out.
Fontaine said 2.8 million of the displaced children are in Ukraine and 2 million in other countries.