The arrest warrant for war crimes, issued this Friday by the International Criminal Court (ICC), was not only directed against the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
As a co-defendant there is also a Russian official: Maria Lvova-Belova.
It’s about the Russian government commissioner for the rights ofhe childa position he has held since October 2021.
Together with Putin, the 38 year old former senator faces war crimes charges for the alleged deportation and illegal transfer of children from areas occupied by Russian forces in Ukraine into Russian territory, according to the ICC.
The court considered that “there are reasonable grounds” to consider that Lvova-Belova has individual criminal responsibility for crimes that occurred since February 24, 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow denies the accusations of war crimes during his “special operation” against the neighboring country. Not being a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, Russia would not respond to requests for the arrest of Putin and Lvova-Belova.
On the contrary, the official expressed this Friday pride in her work to relocate minors from the territories of eastern Ukraine that Russia considers part of its State.
“It is wonderful that the international community has appreciated this work to help the children of our country,” Lvova-Belova told the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
“That we don’t leave them in war zones, that we take them out, that we create good conditions for them, that we surround them with loving and caring people.”
The work of Lvova-Belova
Four months before the start of the war, Lvova-Belova took up the post of commissioner for children’s rights in the presidential office of the Russian Federation.
She had previously been a senator for Penza Oblast, where she was born in 1984.
As part of the Russian invasion, some Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russian territory since the annexed or disputed eastern Ukrainian regions after the conflict.
Lvova-Belova has been responsible for the removal of the children and their “integration” in Russia. From the beginning, she was a public figure, speaker and organizer of these processes.
The official herself has always called this “evacuation” and has explained it as a concern for the interests of children.
But the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly claimed that, from the point of view of international law, these actions are classified as deportation and genocide.
The ICC conducted investigations into allegations of child abduction by Russian forces.
“While there, I visited one of the nursing homes from which the children were allegedly taken, near the current front line of the conflict. The accounts of those who had cared for these children and their fears about what had become of them underscored the urgent need for action,” ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan said on Friday.
Last year, Lvova-Belova spoke publicly of efforts to indoctrinate Ukrainian children taken to Russia.
And he also complained that some children “they spoke ill of the president [ruso]They said horrible things and sang the Ukrainian anthem.”
He said they “began to integrate” after being placed with foster families in Russia.
“So yeah, there are some bad things at first, but then they transform to love Russia”, he pointed.
She has also revealed that she personally adopted a 15 year old boyPhilip Golovna, originally from Mariupolone of the Ukrainian cities taken for several months by Russian forces after the invasion.
Philip, together with a group of children from Mariupol, was taken in the spring of 2022, first to Donetsk, and then to a sanatorium in the Moscow region, where he was received by the official.
In fact, last month he said at a public event that it was “thanks” to President Putin that he was able to achieve adoption. She already had 5 biological children, but she has been known to adopt others.
In response to arrest warrants, the Kremlin said it did not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said any of the court’s decisions were “null and void” with respect to Russia.
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