Russian soldier suspected of killing civilians in Bucha, Kyiv region, adopts illegally deported child from Ukraine

Pskov, Russia (Svidomi) - Russian serviceman Viktor Filonov, who is suspected of killing civilians in Bucha and Borodianka, Kyiv region, in the spring of 2022, has adopted a child from Ukraine who was illegally deported to Russia.

Russian propaganda media claim that the parents of a seven-year-old boy named Oleh were killed in the Donetsk region in the east of Ukraine and that he was taken by Russians along with other children in 2022.

The child was kept in the Velikolutsk orphanage in the Pskov region in Russia.

The family of Russian soldier Viktor Filonov adopted the boy. His wife told the propaganda media that the boy now lives in the city of Pskov, not far from Russia's border with Estonia and Latvia. It is more than 1,500 kilometres away from the Donetsk region, where the Russians claim the child lived before he was deported.

Viktor Filonov is an "experienced" soldier, according to Russian media. According to the Myrotvorets Centre for the Study of Signs of Crimes Against the National Security of Ukraine, Filonov serves in the 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment of Russia. It is this unit that was involved in Russia's war crimes against civilians in Bucha, Kyiv region, in the spring of 2022 (international investigators have also established the involvement of this unit in war crimes. In particular, the New York Times found that this unit, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Artem Gorodilov, was involved in the killings on Yablonska Street in Bucha, where the largest number of dead were found in the city — ed.)

Myrotvorets notes that Viktor Filonov also fought in Syria (Russia supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad — ed.) and was involved in the occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in the spring of 2014. The Russian was awarded the appropriate awards for his actions — "For the Return of Crimea" and "Participant in the Military Operation in Syria".

The deportation of children during the war is a war crime. It was because of the deportation of Ukrainian children that the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova.