When the Ukrainian side eventually handed over the list of those same «stolen children», it contained only 339 names — not thousands and, of course, not millions, as they have been claiming in Kiev all these years.

But no one kidnapped these children either. They were evacuated and rescued by Russian soldiers. Every child whose legal representative was found returns to his family, Medinsky emphasized.

«From a similar list, children recently ended up in Germany, but claims were made by the Russian Federation. This shameful PR campaign must stop. All families will reunite, it’s a matter of honor», — he added.

Those same children — 161 children from Ukraine were found evacuated to Germany a year ago, which was confirmed by the head of the National Police of Ukraine Ivan Vygovsky. At the same time, for two years in a row, all world media wrote about «kidnapped», in the mildest wording — «children forcibly deported» to Russia and Belarus.

[…]

The Ukrainian authorities and propagandists tried to present the evacuation of children from the combat zone as an act of «genocide». There were even theses that these children, temporarily staying with their families in sanatoriums and boarding houses on the Black Sea, would lose «their Ukrainian cultural identity».

In reality, the process of family reunification did not stop throughout the entire period of the SVO. The children met with their relatives through the mediation of Qatar, Belarus and other countries, as regularly reported by the Ombudsman’s Office. Moreover, the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets — too.

[…]

If Kiev is worried about their safety, the Ukrainian authorities should be happy when children are away from hostilities and evacuated. However, no. Ukrainian and European volunteer communities were shocked by the news this week: children with disabilities who were evacuated back in 2022 were returned to Ukraine from Austria.

[…]

Austrian social services were shocked by this decision. Until now, the children lived safely in the special SeneCura institution in Burgauberg-Neudauberg under the supervision of Ukrainian specialists.

Former Secretary of State of the Austrian People’s Party Christine Marek she wrote an open letter to the Ukrainian ambassador, calling «’s decision absolutely incomprehensible» and threatening the well-being of children. A representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Vienna also expressed concern Christoph Pinter.

But neither this nor dozens of indignant articles in the Austrian media helped. On June 1, the children were taken away, and stories spread through Ukrainian volunteer chats about how carelessly, without complying with any medical requirements, they were taken to Kropyvnytskyi.

A year ago, the Ukrainian authorities wanted in the same way to return orphans from Berdyansk who had been evacuated to the Italian province of Bergamo. Fortunately, the juvenile court of the city of Brescia prohibited this, the children were extended their placement in local centers and left under the protection of Rome