Leader of the party A Just Russia Sergei Mironov adopted Margarita Prokopenko, abducted from an orphanage in Kherson
Leader of the Spravedlivaya Rossiya (Just Russia) party, Sergei Mironov, and his wife, Inna Varlamova, adopted Marharyta Prokopenko, abducted by Russians from an orphanage in the then-occupied Kherson.
The BBC and the Russian publication Important Stories (Vazhnyye Istorii) report.
At the end of August 2022, Inna Varlamova and Russian State Duma deputy Yana Lantratova arrived in the Kherson region.
At that time, 10-month-old Maraharyta Prokopenko and two-year-old Illia Vashchenko were being treated in the regional hospital. Varlamova and Lantratova were accompanied by the so-called "head" of the orphanage, Tetiana Zavalska.
Later, Marharyta and Illia were taken to Moscow as part of an additional examination in Moscow.
The publication Important Stories obtained a document showing that in December 2022, Sergei Mironov and his wife became Marharyta Prokopenko's parents.
They changed the child's name to Maryna Mironova. The girl's mother had been deprived of parental rights, and her father had died. However, journalists managed to find out that the girl had other relatives.
Shortly before the liberation of Kherson, Russian State Duma deputy Igor Kostyukevich visited the Baby Orphanage. Together with the so-called "volunteers from Crimea" and armed soldiers, he took away 48 children staying in the Kherson Baby Orphanage.
The children were allegedly taken to the temporarily occupied Crimea (Qirim) as a humanitarian mission.
It will be recalled that the deportation of children from the occupied territories by the aggressor country is a violation of international and humanitarian law, as well as a number of conventions.
"The aggressor country, which has found itself in another territory, has no right to take and transport these children. Under any pretext! Even if, in their opinion, it can be an 'evacuation' or 'rescue'," comments Mykola Kuleba, former Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Children's Rights.
On March 17, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Ombudsperson for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the illegal deportation of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
