Russia has been added to the United Nations’ annual report on the impact of children in warfare, according to documents seen by an AFP reporter.
Writing in the report, which was distributed to members of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his concern about the “high number of grave violations against children in Ukraine” committed over the last year.
Specifically, Guterres condemned Russia’s many attacks on residential buildings and schools in Ukraine – an accusation repeatedly denied by Moscow since the beginning of the conflict.
“I am particularly shocked by the high number of attacks on schools and hospitals and protected personnel, and by the high number of children killed and maimed attributed to the Russian forces and affiliated armed groups,” Guterres reportedly described in the document.
The report, which is expected to be released next week, will describe how 477 Ukrainian children have been killed in the conflict in the last year, with 136 of those deaths directly attributed to Russian forces and pro-Russian groups, and 80 attributed to Ukrainian strikes. The report is also expected to reveal how 90 children were injured – with some 175 injured by Ukrainian forces and 518 by Russian and pro-Russian groups.
The annual report is distributed to all 15 members of the Security Council on children and armed conflict. Each report documents the impact of war on children, including the killing and maiming of children, abduction, sexual abuse, the recruitment of children to fight in armed conflict, and the denial of schools, aid, and medical care. Virginia Gamba, the United Nations’ special representative for children and armed conflict, is responsible for the annual document.
Is Russia Taking Children As Hostages?
Reports from last week describe how Russian forces may be preparing to abduct hundreds more Ukrainian children from the Berdyansk District of Ukraine.
Writing on Telegram over the weekend, Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov claimed that Russian forces were in the process of removing 300 children from occupied Berdyansk and Zaporizhzhia and placing them in facilities in the Chuvash Republic of Russia.
“The Russian media reported that 48 children had been sent, the rest are going to be taken out in several shifts. First, they seized Ukrainian territories and deprived children of at least the Sea of Azov (in fact, of a happy childhood), and now they are sending the kids 1,600 km away from home deep into Russia,” the statement reads.
Fedorov claimed that Russian forces were keeping the children as a “bargaining chip for blackmail.”
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
