The deportation of over 19,500 Ukrainian children to russia has been confirmed, according to Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets. He made this statement during the international human rights conference Freedom or Fear on December 7, as reported by Ukrinform.
"At the moment, there is confirmation of the deportation of more than 19,540 Ukrainian children to russia. If we were to return one child every day, it would take us 55 years. And this is against the backdrop of russia continuing to deport new groups of Ukrainian children from our country every day", - said Lubinets.
He noted that the Ukrainian authorities currently have numerous initiatives on this matter.
"Unfortunately, we do not have many tools to return all deported Ukrainian children. But we are exploring new and concrete instruments on how we can bring back our Ukrainian children", - the ombudsman also stated.
It was previously reported that Ukraine has returned an additional 8 children deported to russia.