...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...The study, titled "Russia’s Systematic Program of Coerced Adoption and Fostering of Ukraine’s Children," found that 166 of the children have already been placed with Russian citizens, spread across 21 states and provinces. At least 67 of them are confirmed to have been naturalized as Russian citizens.
"All databases are operated by, affiliated with, and are under either the direct command of Russia’s federal government, or formally coordinate closely with it," the authors noted, spotlighting one program personally directed by Putin along with his "children’s rights commissioner," Maria Lvova-Belova.
Putin and Lvova-Belova both have outstanding arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, specifically pertaining to the unlawful forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The Yale study found the kidnapped Ukrainian children were taken from their homes by Russian military aircraft "under the direct control of President Putin’s office." They were then "held at midpoints in Russia for six months" before they were transferred to "educational institutions" in Russia, and then put up for adoption on Putin’s websites. The educational institutions in question delivered heavy doses of Russian propaganda to their unwilling students.
The Ukrainian children were falsely identified as having been born in Russia on at least three child placement databases reviewed by Yale researchers, but in truth they all reportedly come from Luhansk and Donetsk, the Ukrainian provinces occupied by Russian forces.
The Putin regime employed credentialed psychologists to give the program a veneer of legitimacy and the "patina of medical necessity."
Russian government agencies limited the information about the children that was made available to the public and in some cases they altered database entries months after they were created. Some of the children say Russian officials threatened to separate them from their siblings if they did not cooperate with the kidnapping and adoption program.
The report noted that data with "investigative significance" was removed from the adoption systems after the ICC issued its arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova.
The authors found several brass hats from Russian ministries and political groups were involved in the scheme, along with Russian occupation officials in Dontesk and Luhansk, but Putin unquestionably holds "primary command and control responsibility for major strategic decisions about Russia’s program of coerced adoption and fostering."
"Lvova-Belova serves, in effect, as Putin’s executive officer for the program and has been the most critical individual in directing this program next to Putin," they said.
The UK Telegraph on Tuesday noted that one of the children stolen from Ukraine was actually adopted by Lvova-Belova herself.
"Ukrainian officials say they have evidence of almost 20,000 deported children, but fear the number could be much higher because of the lack of oversight in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk which were controlled by Russian proxies before 2022’s full-scale invasion," the Telegraph reported.
The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab issued a statement on Tuesday that said its report "reveals a higher level of crime than first understood" about Putin’s child abductions, and could provide evidence for additional war crimes charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova. In fact, the statement suggested Putin could even be charged with genocide.
Russia is not a signatory to the ICC treaty, and Putin has successfully intimidated member states out of arresting him when he visits, so additional charges and warrants against him would be purely diplomatic gestures.
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