President Joe Biden announced sanctions on a childcare center in Crimea, accusing Russian officials of taking Ukrainian children to the location against the parents’ will.
In a statement from the White House, Biden claimed the “children have been stolen from their parents and kept apart from their families” and called for “Ukrainian children be returned to their families.”
Moscow claims that the children are sent to the childcare center for their protection.
Around 11 Russian individuals were added to the sanctions list, along with a complex of nine recreational and educational camps for children known as Artek.
Artek has taken in thousands of children from Ukrainian regions under threat of missile strikes.
Putin has said Russia is acting within the law, saying the government was “moving [children] out of the conflict zone [and] saving their lives.”
In some instances, Russian authorities “evacuated entire orphanages, and did so absolutely legally because the heads of these orphanages were their [legal] representatives,” Putin said. “We were never against the children reuniting with their families, if, of course, their relatives were to show up.”
Reporting from RT:
Artek director Konstantin Fedorenko is among the individuals sanctioned, as is Vladimir Kovalenko, who runs patriotic youth camps in Crimea. Children’s rights and education officials from multiple Russian territories complete the list. The majority of those named, as well as Artek, have already been sanctioned by the EU and UK. In March, the International Criminal Court (IOC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova on charges of “unlawful deportation and transfer” of children from Ukraine. Russia is not a party to the IOC’s Rome Statute and, therefore, does not recognize the jurisdiction of The Hague-based court.
