By Kontur and AFP | 2023-11-13

KYIV -- A Ukrainian orphan from Mariupol, who was taken to Russia after it captured the port city last year, will be returned to Ukraine in a rare deal between Kyiv and Moscow, they announced Friday (November 10).

The Kremlin has been accused of illegally transferring thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking President Vladimir Putin's arrest over alleged deportations.

Bogdan Yermokhin, 17, was taken by Russian forces from Mariupol to Russia last spring and -- like an unknown number of other Ukrainian children -- placed in a Russian foster family.

Moscow said earlier this year that he had tried to escape back to Ukraine but was stopped near the Belarusian border.

"Bogdan Yermokhin will soon be in Ukraine!" Ukrainian rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets wrote on social media Friday.

"I officially confirm that we have agreements on Bogdan's return to Ukraine, and his reunification with his sister."

The news came after his lawyers told Ukrainian media last week that Moscow had sent Yermokhin -- given Russian citizenship while in Russia -- military call-up papers, ahead of his 18th birthday.

Moscow confirmed Yermokhin will be returned to Ukraine.

Russian children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova Belova -- also wanted by the ICC -- said Friday that the teenager would leave Russia via a third country to meet a relative.

"The Russian and Ukrainian sides worked on and agreed to have Bogdan and his sister meet in a third country on his birthday," she said on social media, without specifying the location.

Lvova-Belova had claimed several times this year that Yermokhin wanted to stay in Russia and was being harassed by Ukrainian officials to return.

But she said Friday that Yermokhin had "changed his mind."

She also said it was normal that he had received summons to appear at a military enlistment office.

"Such notices are given to all Russian citizens of his age," she said.

Ukraine gave no timeline for when Yermokhin would be returned to Ukraine.

'Clear violation'

Thousands of Ukrainian children are believed to have been taken to Russia during its invasion.

Last month, Russia said it would return four Ukrainian children to their relatives after mediation by Qatar.

Under international agreements, the deportation of a civilian population is considered a war crime and forcible transfers of children of one group to another group amount to genocide.

Russia has simplified the path to citizenship for Ukrainian children, allowing their temporary guardians in Russia to apply, thereby paving the way for illegal adoptions.

Moscow was holding at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in "re-education" camps, a US government-funded study reported in February.

Since the start of the war in February 2022, children as young as four months have been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in Siberia and Moscow-annexed Crimea, for "pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education," the Yale School of Medicine Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) said in a report that was funded by the US State Department.

Russia is in "clear violation" of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the treatment of civilians during war, said Nathaniel Raymond, a Yale researcher.

The Russian activity "in some cases may constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity," he told reporters at the time.

The report called for a neutral body to be granted access to the camps and for Russia immediately to stop adoptions of Ukrainian children.

"The total number of [detained] children is not known and is likely significantly higher than 6,000," the HRL said.

Ukrainian authorities have identified 19,484 children who were illegally deported to Russia as of May, but some say there are as many as 200,000–300,000.