Ukraine condemns Putin's citizenship decree as a violation of children's rights amid Ukraine-Russia conflict

Ukraine has strongly criticized a decree signed by Russian President Putin, which allows for Ukrainian children relocated to Russia to acquire Russian citizenship. Last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for President Putin due to Russia's policy of forcibly deporting children. The Ukrainian foreign ministry deemed the decree illegal and viewed it as an attempt by Russia to address its own demographic issues. The ministry further stated that the decree violated Ukrainian and international laws, as well as the rights of the children involved. Ukraine's Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, alleged that Russia was granting citizenship to these children to avoid classifying them as Ukrainians who had been transferred to Russia. Since the start of the invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has identified over 19,000 deported Ukrainian children, with only a small fraction having been repatriated to date. In a separate incident, a BBC investigation discovered that a close political ally of Putin had adopted a child taken from a Ukrainian children's home. Sergey Mironov, the leader of a Russian political party, appears on adoption records as the adoptive parent of a two-year-old girl seized in 2022. These events prompted the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights. The court expressed that children should not be treated as "spoils of war" and mentioned the possibility of Putin facing trial for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.