War criminal and Russian children’s ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova, who was arrested by the International Criminal Court along with Putin, has admitted to stealing at least 31 Ukrainian children by Russians.
In an interview with the American edition of Vice, Lev-Belova howled that a “group of children” had been taken out of Russian-occupied Mariupol, among whom was 16-year-old Philip Golovnya, who was later adopted by the Ombudswoman.
He was in the Mariupol group, which we evacuated after active hostilities. They found children in basements, there was a group of 31 children, mostly teenagers, says Lvova-Belova.
However, according to the investigation of the schemes, the teenager was kidnapped from the Metro supermarket, where he came for humanitarian aid.
In a conversation with journalists, Lvova-Belova continued to deny the deportation of Ukrainian children, calling it “evacuation” and “rescue from dangerous territories in accordance with the Geneva Convention.”
Ukraine has done nothing to evacuate children from Mariupol. Where were the humanitarian corridors? Where was the evacuation of the children? The same thing is happening now near Bakhmut. Now, with my employees, we were taking out families with children,” the Ombudswoman said cynically.
Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk, in a commentary to the Public, said that this was “an attempt to avoid responsibility for a crime” and stressed that Ukraine had repeatedly demanded the opening of humanitarian corridors.
Recall that Ukraine has many times tried to organize humanitarian corridors from the front-line and occupied cities of the south and east, in particular Mariupol. However, Russia kept disrupting the agreements, the occupying troops opened fire, making it impossible to evacuate.
Recently, a decision was also made in Ukraine on the mandatory evacuation of children from the war zone. People are being taken out even from areas of active hostilities, in particular Avdiivka.
What did Lvov-Belov say?
I am a mother. And that’s it. What kind of war criminal am I? What are you talking about? This is very funny. Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. I am accused of a criminal offense, as the judges say, for the forced removal, deportation of children, but in fact it was an evacuation from shelling. What is the genocide of the Ukrainian people? We have a fairly large part of people in Russia with Ukrainian blood. We allow the children who have just arrived to continue learning the Ukrainian language.
I adopted Philip, who was evacuated as part of a group of teenagers from Mariupol. We talked to him, and, you know, my heart subsided, and I realized that this is my child. We love each other madly, that’s a fact. He calls me mom now.
Ukraine has done nothing to evacuate children from Mariupol. Where were the humanitarian corridors? The same thing is happening now near Bakhmut. Now, with my employees, we were taking families with children out of there – we were saving children. We took them to a place where they would survive and be safe.
Indeed, several thousand children from the shelled areas of Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkov regions were sent free of charge to rest in camps in Russia, in agreement with their parents. This was followed by a shift in the front line. And some of the parents really remained on the side of Ukraine, which made it difficult for the children to return home.
The difference between us and Ukraine is that we do not use children in politics, but, unfortunately, this happens there. When the children from Mariupol thanked the fighters in Luzhniki for saving them, for pulling them out from under the bombings – is gratitude really propaganda?
We always sang songs in Russian and Ukrainian, we told Russian and Ukrainian fairy tales, we always lived in friendship and understanding. And in Ukraine, everything that is connected with Russia is now being erased.
I am a member of the team of my beloved president, of course I am a patriot of my country. I’m not that pro-Russian, I’m Russian in its purest form. Everything that concerns our actions that have been taken at the moment, I can say with absolute certainty that there was no politics there. There was only empathy and love. And therefore I can say for sure that I am not ashamed of any of my actions, because it was all for the children and for the sake of the children.
Who is Lvova-Belova
Recall that the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued international warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belov. They are suspected of a war crime – the illegal deportation of the population, including children.
In the summer of 2022, Lvova-Belova said that she herself adopted a child from Mariupol captured by Russian troops. She regularly posts photos of the teenager on her social networks and even made a propaganda film about this story for the Tsargrad TV channel.
The boy’s name is Philip Golovnya, he is 15 years old, he may be an orphan – the media mentioned that the last time he spoke with his mother was when he was 11 years old, but there are no details and independent confirmation of this fact.
Philip, together with a group of children from Mariupol, was taken in the spring of 2022, first to Donetsk, and then to a sanatorium in the Moscow region, where he was met by the commissioner for children’s rights.
I just realized that he was mine, she later recalled in an interview.
Philip is not the only child of 38-year-old Lvovskaya-Belova. At various stages, up to 18 children were in her care. She now has five biological children and five adopted or under her care. Some of them are already adults.
Lvova-Belova, originally from Penza, was appointed Commissioner for Children’s Rights at the end of 2021. Prior to that, she represented the Penza Region in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation and was one of the leaders of the Penza branch of the All-Russian Popular Front (a movement created by Putin).
Lvova-Belova is married to an Orthodox priest and is often photographed at services.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.