2023-11-23 21:49:58
by Marta Serafini
The reconstruction of the «Bbc»: the little girl, not even a year old, was hospitalized in Kherson. A woman took her away, then the little girl reappeared in Russia where she was renamed “Marina” by the politician Sergey Mironov, close to the Tsar
FROM OUR REPORTER
ODESSA — A key ally of Vladimir Putin and a little girl taken from a Ukrainian orphanage. The mystery begins in August 2022, when a woman dressed in lilac shows up at the Kherson children’s hospital, where 10-month-old Margarita is being treated for an attack of bronchitis. Before arriving at the hospital, the little girl lived in the Kherson regional orphanage where she was left by her mother. Then one day she disappears with 43 other children. The BBC reconstructs Margarita’s story, in collaboration with a Ukrainian investigator Victoria Novikova. Six months after the Russians occupied Kherson, a woman dressed in lilac shows up at the hospital as “the head of children’s affairs in Moscow” and she says she wants to see Margarita. Shortly after the woman leaves, the hospital receives a phone call from a Russian-appointed official demanding the little girl’s immediate resignation.
A week later, when Margarita returns to the orphanage, the staff is asked to prepare the little girl for a trip. According to witnesses, Russian men — some wearing military-style camouflage pants, one wearing black glasses and carrying a briefcase — come to pick up Margarita. Seven weeks later, Igor Kastyukevich, a Russian deputy in military uniform shows up at the orphanage and with other officials, begins to organize the deportation of the other remaining children, including Margarita’s half-brother, Maxym. The video footage — published on Telegram by Kastyukevich himself — shows the children, bundled up, being taken away in buses and ambulances. “They will go to safety in Crimea,” announces Kastyukevich himself. For five months Thanks to Novikova’s investigations, the “woman dressed in lilac” is identified: she is Inna Varlamova. The investigator also discovers a Russian document authorizing Margarita’s transfer to a Moscow hospital for medical tests. That name appears on the document: Inna Varlamova. A search on social media confirms: it is the mysterious woman dressed in lilac who visited Margarita in the pediatric ward. Varlamova works in the Russian parliament, although it is unclear in what capacity, and she owns property in Podolsk, near Moscow.
The BBC’s investigations will discover that Varlamova took Margarita away by train to Moscow. Then the second discovery: a document shows that Varlamova recently married the leader of the political party Sergey Mironov. He is a 70-year-old former paratrooper, leader of the Just Russia Party – part of the opposition authorized by the Russian state – which supports President Putin. His name is on the sanctions blacklists of numerous Western countries, including the UK and the EU. But the BBC discovers something else. That is, the names of the woman in lilac and the Russian deputy appear in a birth certificate of a 14-month-old girl named “Marina”. «Marina»’s date of birth is October 31, 2021, the same day Margarita was born. Margarita Prokopenko was renamed Marina Mironova, in honor of her adoptive father Sergey Mironov. Her birthplace is listed as Podolsk.
The Geneva Convention states that it is illegal to deport civilians in times of war unless it is essential for security or military imperatives and is temporary. The convention also prohibits changing the child’s family status. When President Putin and Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova were indicted by the International Criminal Court earlier this year, prosecutors in The Hague said the illegal deportation of hundreds of Ukrainian children from orphanages and institutions for children had been carried out with “the intention of permanently removing these children from their families”. This follows President Putin’s decision to issue decrees that had the effect of facilitating the adoption of Ukrainian children by Russians. Lvova-Belova countered that Russia only takes children into foster care or guardianship. The BBC wrote to Sergei Mironov and Inna Varlamova asking where Margarita is now, but they did not respond. Ukraine says it has identified 19,546 children who were brought to Russia. He claims fewer than 400 have returned. But Russia continues to dispute these figures.
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November 23, 2023 (modified November 23, 2023 | 8:49 pm)
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