The Russian Ministry of Transport is facilitating the transfer of 400 Ukrainian children from the Donetsk region to Russia and Qırım — ZMINA

The Russian Ministry of Transport is facilitating the transfer of 400 Ukrainian children from the Donetsk region to Russia and Qırım — ZMINA

The Ministry of Transport has instructed its structures to provide free transport for the deportation of 400 Ukrainian children from the Donetsk region and take them to Qırım, Aqyar (Sevastopol), and six regions of Russia.

The ZMINA human rights defenders received this information from their sources.

The transfer of children is allegedly being carried out as part of a "humanitarian mission" under the project "Children are our future," which is being implemented by the charity foundation "Spasaya Detstvo" ("Saving Childhood" — TN) in cooperation with the Russian Presidential Administration, the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation, and the so-called "Ministry of Sports and Tourism" of the illegal military formation "DPR."

At the request of this organisation, the Department of State Policy for Road and Passenger Transport of the Russian Ministry of Transport is asking to transport 400 Ukrainian children to the republics of Adygea and Kalmykia, Krasnodar Krai, Astrakhan, Vologda, and Rostov regions, as well as to the temporarily occupied Qırım and Aqyar.

They plan to take 50 children to each region. In these regions, the children will be involved in training and undergo "rehabilitation from war."

They are scheduled to be transported in September.

According to the official website, the main activity of the "Spasaya Detstvo" charity foundation is to provide assistance to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) living in the Moscow region and Yaroslavl. This is what the foundation did until 2022. At the same time, in July 2022, the fund began taking Ukrainian children from the occupied territories to the Russian Federation.

In particular, in December 2022, they took 167 children to Peredelkino under the "Patriarchal Mission" and "Children of Donbas at the Patriarch's House" programmes. The children were taken to various services to "introduce them to the traditions of Russian Orthodoxy," arranged "audiences with Patriarch Kirill," and taken on "excursions."