Thousands of children have been deported from Ukraine, report authorities in Kyiv

Russia-backed authorities are pushing ahead with efforts to consolidate control of occupied and annexed areas of Ukraine. They want to forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians, including thousands of children, into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian occupation officials and forces are intensifying filtration measures in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.

The US-based think-tank also reports that Russian officials are deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Russia-installed authorities in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic claimed that they sent Ukrainian children from this region to the region of Krasnodar in Russia.

According to Ukraine’s National Information Bureau, almost 11,500 children have been deported, based on calls from parents looking for their children.

To learn more about the situation in Ukraine, watch our report by our correspondent Sasha Vakulina in the video player above.