Russia's kidnap operations in Ukraine
Shortly after Russia began its deadly invasion of Ukraine last March, Ukrainian officials and human rights groups warned that Russian forces had begun abducting and forcibly relocating thousands of Ukrainian children.
A group of 15 Ukrainian orphans and their adult guardian say they were caught in that very limbo after they were taken by Russian soldiers, barred from evacuating, and forcibly transferred.
The children, who were put on Ukraine’s missing persons list, shared their story for the first time with ABC News Live, detailing how a group of American volunteers eventually got them out.
"We didn't understand why [the Russians] took us. We were afraid of them, and afraid of being in Russia," 14-year-old Dasha, one of the orphans, told ABC News.
Last week Ukraine's top presidential adviser for children's rights said Russian troops have abducted close to 14,000 Ukrainian kids. The Russian government has rejected claims that it has been kidnapping children.
The forcible transfer of children can constitute a grave war crime.
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Some have alleged that Russian aggression in Ukraine is about trying to rebuild Russia's population Over 700,000 have actually fled Russia since the war was launched. It was pretty clearly a kidnap operation.
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But we’re now living, for the first time, in an era where everyone in Europe — from politicians to cab drivers — can understand one another. It’s true that previously, diplomats could communicate through translators and, typically, in English. Now, ordinary Europeans can understand one another, instantly and accurately, and because of the compulsive lure of social media — and Twitter’s decision to automatically translate every tweet — Europeans can and do talk to each other all day long. Talking to Ukrainians, and hearing directly from them, has hardened public support for sanctions and weapons transfers in the EU, despite Russian threats and soaring energy prices. Eurobarometer polling shows that 74 percent of EU citizens back the bloc’s support for Kyiv.
This public support for Ukraine has translated into action. The West’s assistance to Ukraine has also been notable for the way Western politicians have responded to their citizens’ sentiment, rather than shaping it. At every stage, citizens have pushed their leaders to move faster and further. We’ve seen this recently in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine after an eternity of hesitation and dithering. He faced mounting public fury and protests, withering criticism and an outraged social media campaign to #FreeTheLeopards. In late January, Scholz relented and freed the Leopards — a decision lambasted by Putin in a flamethrower of a speech on Thursday.
Google Translate isn’t the complete explanation for the newfound European unity, of course, but it’s an underappreciated part of the story.
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Considering that there are about 200 native languages within Europe that is a remarkable achievement.
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