Current:Home > FinanceRussian lawmaker disputes report saying he adopted a child taken from a Ukrainian children’s home -WealthDrive Solutions
Russian lawmaker disputes report saying he adopted a child taken from a Ukrainian children’s home
View
Date:2025-04-14 04:57:49
LONDON (AP) — A Russian lawmaker and staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin has denied media allegations that he adopted a missing 2-year-old girl who was removed from a Ukrainian children’s home and changed her name in Russia.
Sergey Mironov, 70, the leader of political party A Just Russia, asserted on social media that the Ukrainian security services and their Western partners concocted a “fake” report to discredit true Russian patriots like himself.
His statement, posted on X, followed the BBC and independent Russian news outlet Important Stories publishing an investigation Thursday that said Mironov adopted a child named Margarita Prokopenko who was allegedly taken to Moscow at the age of 10 months by the woman to whom he is now married.
Mironov accused the two news organizations of having only “one goal — to discredit those who take an uncompromising patriotic position.”
“You are trying in vain,” he wrote, adding that Russia would win its war in Ukraine.
The office of the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner told The Associated Press it was looking into the news report.
In March, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for children’s rights in Putin’s office, accusing them of committing war crimes through their involvement in the abduction of children from Ukraine.
Bill Van Esveld, associate director of the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, said Friday that the agency could not independently confirm the BBC and Important Stories’ findings. But he thinks the deportation of the girl to Russia, her adoption and her name change would be “a black and white war crime.”
The investigation by the BBC and Important Stories said Margarita was collected in August 2022 from a home for children needing specialized medical care or missing parents in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which was occupied by Russian soldiers at the time.
The news organizations identified a woman who had visited the baby in Kherson before a group of Russian men removed the child from the home as Inna Varlamova, 55, who later married Mironov. The investigation also cited a birth record created several months later that listed Mironov and Varlamova as the parents of child named Marina who was born Oct. 31, 2021 — Margarita’s birthday.
Ukrainian authorities have estimated that around 20,000 children were sent out of the country without their parents’ knowledge or under false pretenses since Russia invaded in February 2022. A study by Yale University found more than 2,400 Ukrainian children aged 6-17 have been taken to Belarus from four regions of Ukraine that are partially occupied by Russian forces.
The AP reported in Oct. 2022 that Russian officials deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, told them they weren’t wanted by their parents and gave them Russian families and citizenship.
Vira Yastrebova, director of Eastern Human Rights Group, a Ukrainian non-governmental organization, said Russian authorities were increasingly placing children into Russian foster families for eventual adoption instead of temporary guardianship.
Because Russian law makes it very difficult to find information about adoptions, it is therefore easy “to hide any information” about the children, Yastrebova said.
The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, maintained in September that Russia does not “kidnap” Ukrainian children but is “saving” them. Russia has said it will return children to their families once a parent or guardian requests it. But, because many Ukrainian families do not know where their children were taken, they are unable to make the requests.
Even when children are located, reuniting them with their families during the ongoing war often is a complicated process, involving a lot of paperwork and international border crossings. Pope Francis tasked his Ukraine peace envoy earlier this year with trying to get young Ukrainians returned to their country.
The transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia will affect them profoundly and have “a lifelong impact,” Van Esveld told the AP in a phone interview Friday.
“They have no opportunity to go back to their community or country and their development, right to education and right to form their own identity without coercion is impacted,” he said.
___
Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn contributed to this report.
veryGood! (2)
Related
- Dick Vitale announces he is cancer free: 'Santa Claus came early'
- Martin Scorsese on faith in filmmaking, ‘The Saints’ and what his next movie might be
- Kentucky governor says investigators will determine what caused deadly Louisville factory explosion
- Martin Scorsese on faith in filmmaking, ‘The Saints’ and what his next movie might be
- Civic engagement nonprofits say democracy needs support in between big elections. Do funders agree?
- Powell says Fed will likely cut rates cautiously given persistent inflation pressures
- College football Week 12 expert picks for every Top 25 game include SEC showdowns
- Sofia Richie Reveals 5-Month-Old Daughter Eloise Has a Real Phone
- Tom Holland's New Venture Revealed
- UConn, Kansas State among five women's college basketball games to watch this weekend
Ranking
- Appeals court scraps Nasdaq boardroom diversity rules in latest DEI setback
- Don't Miss Cameron Diaz's Return to the Big Screen Alongside Jamie Foxx in Back in Action Trailer
- College football Week 12 expert picks for every Top 25 game include SEC showdowns
- Jake Paul's only loss led him to retool the team preparing him to face Mike Tyson
- Are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp down? Meta says most issues resolved after outages
- Stop What You're Doing—Moo Deng Just Dropped Her First Single
- Dick Van Dyke says he 'fortunately' won't be around for Trump's second presidency
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chancellor to step down at end of academic year
Recommendation
As Trump Enters Office, a Ripe Oil and Gas Target Appears: An Alabama National Forest
Traveling to Las Vegas? Here Are the Best Black Friday Hotel Deals
Only 8 monkeys remain free after more than a week outside a South Carolina compound
Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn ends retirement, plans to return to competition
Meet the volunteers risking their lives to deliver Christmas gifts to children in Haiti
Advance Auto Parts is closing hundreds of stores in an effort to turn its business around
Jake Paul's only loss led him to retool the team preparing him to face Mike Tyson
KFC sues Church's Chicken over 'original recipe' fried chicken branding