Russia and Ukraine return children to families in Qatar-mediated deal

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to return to each other a total of nine children to be reunited with family members, according to a senior Russian official, in the latest humanitarian exchange between the warring countries.

The transfers were agreed following mediation by Qatar, which has brokered several similar deals since the start of the full-scale war in February 2022.

Russia's commissioner for children, Maria Lvova-Belova, said on Thursday that six boys and one girl, aged six to 16, were being returned to relatives in Ukraine.

"Most of the children lived in Russia with close relatives, mainly with their grandmothers. One boy, aged 16, who had been left without parental care since birth, was in the Aleshkinsky orphanage. His brother took custody of the child," she said.

"The children's stories are very different, some are especially dramatic. The parents of one 12-year-old boy were divorced, and this year his mother died. Now the boy will go to his father in Ukraine."

Lvova-Belova said on Wednesday that Qatari mediation had also enabled the repatriation of two young Russian boys, aged seven and nine, from Ukraine.

She said the older boy was being reunited with his mother, after living with his father and grandmother in Ukraine since 2019. The younger one was returning to his father following the death of his mother, who had taken him to Ukraine in 2020.

Lvova-Belova did not say how most of the children had ended up in Russia.

Ukraine says about 20,000 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territory without the consent of family or guardians since the war began, calling the abductions a war crime that meets the U.N. treaty definition of genocide.

Moscow says it has protected vulnerable children from the war zone.

In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Lvova-Belova and President Vladimir Putin related to the abduction of Ukrainian children. Russia denounced the warrants as "outrageous and unacceptable".