ECHR hears how 10 children went missing after Russia annexed Crimea

Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian President Vladimir Putin is a wanted man. Not only for the alleged war crimes Ukraine has been accusing him of, but also his suspected role in the “unlawful deportation and transfer” of children from Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia, according to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” the court said in 2017, when issuing an arrest warrant for him and Maria Lvova-Belova, his children’s rights commissioner.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) heard a case concerning 10 Ukrainian children who were forcibly transferred from Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation and put up for adoption.

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (UHHRU), which lodged the case, argued that Russian nationality was imposed on the children who were taken from childcare institutions. The group says that as there has been no information on their whereabouts since 2014, despite the Ukrainian authorities’ repeated requests, this amounts to enforced disappearance.

Ahead of the hearing, the special envoy of the Council of Europe Secretary General said it is a reminder that “we must keep Ukrainian children at the heart of the political agenda”.

“Behind every case is a child whose fate matters, whose identity must be protected, and whose whereabouts must be known. We must not stop asking questions and demanding answers,” said envoy Thordis Kolbrun Reykfjord Gylfadottir.

In total, four Ukrainian human rights and journalistic groups accuse Moscow of violating the international Convention on the Rights of the Child, levelling various charges including deporting children, illegal adoption and changing children’s identities and nationalities.

The change of identity, including their first and last names and even dates of birth, is the reason “very little is known about these (10) children  – or about such children in general,” Onysiia Syniuk of the Zmina rights group told Al Jazeera. “Tracking these children is, unfortunately, extremely difficult,” she said.