🔴🔴🔴🔴 MULTI SUBTITLES 🔴🔴🔴🔴
Moscow, June 30, 2023.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s briefing on a wide range of international issues, including humanitarian aspects in the context of developments in Ukraine.
"Question: I would like to ask about the recent report to the UN Security Council presented by UN Secretary General António Guterres, which named Russia as the country responsible for violations of children's rights in Ukraine in connection with the deaths of children in 2022. However, the Ukrainian side is not mentioned in this report in any way. What do you think of this statement by the UN Secretary General? What are the reasons for such a statement? Do you associate this statement with the International Criminal Court finding the President of the Russian Federation and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights guilty of violating these rights and issuing a warrant for their arrest? Does Russia plan to take any action in connection with this report?
Sergey Lavrov: UN Secretary General António Guterres mentions in his report 46 cases where children have been moved to the Russian territory. They were moved (although the Secretary General does not mention this term), not forcibly displaced. Children were moved without their parents' or guardians' consent. It was exclusively about the evacuation of minors to safe areas from the conflict zone. These children are regularly featured in reports on Russian television. They stay in children’s summer camps and talk about how they are doing. We have always told international organisations that we are ready to provide them with all the information if they are interested in gathering facts about those children or anything else concerning the situation in Ukraine during the special military operation. We did provide the information. But as a rule, it is not reflected in the documents of the UN Secretariat. Nor do they reflect the fact that since February 2022 we have received more than five million residents of Ukraine, more than 700,000 of whom are children. The vast majority of them came with their parents or other family members. And of those, only 2,000 are children from orphanages in the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics who were evacuated along with the staff and carers of these institutions. All of them remain at various structures that are connected with children’s homes. Indeed, 358 children were placed with families, not through adoption, but through temporary provisional guardianship or temporary custody. This form was chosen specifically in view of the fact that the children’s parents may turn up. The parents have every opportunity to take their children away should they be interested in doing so.
About the reasons why UN Secretary General António Guterres decided to mention us and not Ukraine. If we take the number of cases that cause concern in Ukraine, they are similar to the number of cases mentioned in the Russian section of this report. But for some reason António Guterres decided that the same phenomena can be assessed in different ways and sometimes it is based on the need to qualify things, but at other times it is just mentioned in an impersonal way.
I said in my opening remarks today that we are alarmed by the West’s policy of subjugating international secretariats and in fact privatising them. This is a serious problem. The secretariats are dominated by citizens of Western countries or developing countries who move to New York, get a second citizenship and no longer represent the interests of their historical homeland; instead, they focus on the interests of their new country. We know how these interests are promoted, what methods are used, without shame or scruples. I do not see any other way here but to pursue the truth. We will do this through our own unbiased investigation, which will not be influenced by any interested parties, especially those who sponsor the Kiev regime.
We have addressed UN Secretary General António Guterres and reminded him of the fate of Ukrainian refugee children in Europe. Their parents call our diplomatic offices, complaining and asking for help. We can only draw the European Union's attention to this (which we are doing now). We have sent a special appeal to António Guterres. We will see how he reacts, to what extent he strives for objectivity in this matter."
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