Qatar announces agreement between Ukraine and Russia on child exchange

Qatar announced an agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the exchange of 13 children.

Source: French newspaper Le Monde

Details: “Nine minors and one adult will be reunited with their families in Ukraine,” a Qatari official told AFP, specifying that “four minors” will be reunited with their families in Russia.

The nine children returning to Ukraine are aged 12 to 17. Children who go to Russia are between 2 and 7 years old.

All will be received at the Qatari embassy in Moscow before reuniting with their families.

Qatar has played a mediating role on this issue since July 2023, helping to repatriate Ukrainian children taken to Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories since the start of the large-scale invasion in February 2022.

Background:

• In the spring of 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for their direct involvement in the “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia since February 2022.

• Ukraine estimates that 20,000 Ukrainian minors have been deported or forcibly transferred to Russia, although the actual number could be much higher because this figure only takes into account officially identified children. So far, around 400 of them have been repatriated.

Support UP or become our boss!