Lavrov Favors Extending Russia’s Genocidal Policy of Re-Educating Children from Occupied Portions of Ukraine to Other Regions and Countries

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 16 – Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab has released a new report, “Russia’s Systematic Program for the Re-education and Adoption of Ukraine’s Children” that describes how, in an act of genocide, Moscow is seeking to force them to re-identify as Russians, thus undermining the Ukrainian nation and addressing Russia’s own demographic problems.

            The report (hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/apps/sites/#/home/pages/children-camps-1) is damning and must be a matter of particular concern not only because of its obvious parallels with what Beijing has been doing in Xinjiang to far greater international condemnation but also because some in Moscow want to extend the ongoing program to other regions and countries.

            Yana Lantratova, a Duma deputy and self-described “human rights activist,” told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that he should promote the use of this program elsewhere in Ukraine and even in other countries where it may become possible. And Lavrov agreed, saying “yes, yes, yes” (graniru.org/Society/Kids/m.287283.html).

            That Putin’s plans extend far beyond Ukraine is now common ground; and that they include plans not just for military action but genocide by means of forcible re-education of children must be recognized and the basis for international action against such policies wherever they are employed, including elsewhere in Ukraine, in Russia’s neighbors and in Russia itself.