Parliamentary commission tasked with investigating the criminal actions perpetrated by the Kiev regime against minors has held its regular meeting.
The parliamentary commission investigating the criminal actions perpetrated by the Kiev regime against minors held its first meeting in 2024, co-chaired by Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Inna Svyatenko and Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Anna Kuznetsova. The meeting started with a minute of silence to mark a shelling attack on Donetsk which left two children dead.
The Federation Council Deputy Speaker said that the situation has not improved since the commission’s previous meeting and even became worse in some respects. In particular, there were instances of orphans and families with children being taken from Ukraine to European countries where minors were illegally separated or taken away, under various pretexts. Inna Svyatenko called on the Federation Council’s and State Duma’s foreign affairs committees to consider drafting an address to international organisations and human rights activists abroad asking them to help ensure that Kiev is transparent and shares information on where these children are. “Moving minors this way amounts to kidnaping,” she said.
The Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council went on to say that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has supported the initiative to legislate on introducing stricter punishment for kidnapping minors during a military conflict or mobilisation. “This law must be adopted as quickly as possible,” Inna Svyatenko said.
“Ukraine has become a testing ground for NATO weapons and has been using our civilians as a target,” the Deputy Speaker said while referring to the Belgorod and Donetsk tragedies, as well as the attack against Voronezh. The Senator added that no crime goes unrecorded, and all criminals will eventually face the punishment they deserve.
In addition to this, Inna Svyatenko talked about the outright falsehoods and lies circulating on social media and in media outlets, targeting not only people in Ukraine and the West, but also the Russian media audience. “This exposes our children to these fakes, lures them and draws them into destructive and subversive activity,” she pointed out before articulating an initiative for the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media to work with the Interior Ministry for stopping fake news from spreading online, as well as blocking websites posting this content.
“There is an effort underway to denigrate and discredit Russia and Belarus, our friendly country, in the eyes of the international community, but the world can learn the truth from the report drafted by our parliamentary commission,” Inna Svyatenko said.
The Senator also recognised several NGOs, foundations and activists for helping children who have had to endure the horrors of war.
In her remarks, Anna Kuznetsova talked about a comprehensive set of measures to protect families with children who suffered from the Kiev regime’s aggression and offer them social support. It was adopted in late 2023. “The President signed an executive order enacting the corresponding support mechanisms. At this stage, we need to be working through every detail of implementing this executive order,” she said.
The State Duma Deputy Speaker also talked about the events held by the commission in the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics. “We met with families with children who had suffered in this conflict, and those who had lost their homes. We visited residential neighbourhoods targeted by shelling,” she pointed out, adding that the Ukrainian fighters were targeting civilian targets on purpose. “This amounts to international terrorism. There were over 800 shelling incidents involving social infrastructure in the first three weeks of 2024 alone.”
Anna Kuznetsova went on to talk about offering affected children from the reunited regions treatment opportunities.
First Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Alexander Bugayev made a presentation on education in the reunited regions, saying that the effort to integrate these regions into the country’s educational system was underway. “There are over 2,500 educational institutions in the reunited regions serving over 400,000 students and employing over 46,000 educational workers,” he pointed out, adding that the educational process fully complies with the federal programmes and state standards.
The First Deputy Minister also talked about enrolling the new regions into the federal programme tasked with renovating school buildings. “We included 36 schools into this programme for 2024–2026,” he said. Construction of new school buildings is also underway.
In his remarks, the official placed special emphasis on counselling and rehabilitation services for children who suffered during the conflict and their parents.
Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin and Chair of the Federation Council Committee on the Rules of Procedure and Parliamentary Governance Vyacheslav Timchenko presented their preliminary results at the Commission’s meeting.
Senators of the Russian Federation, members of the State Duma, as well as officials from federal and regional governments attended the meeting.
Following the meeting, the Federation Council Deputy Speaker talked to the media, saying that the Senators and State Duma MPs would work together on drafting legislation to prevent crimes targeting children on social media and in the media space.