The Russian Permanent Mission to the UN in mid-August reported on the appeal of at least 50 families who moved from Ukraine to the EU and faced the removal of their children by local guardianship authorities. However, not everyone wanted the stories to be made public. Back in April, the Russian side created the email address europestealschildren@gmail.com and published about this problem on Twitter and Telegram with the hashtag #europestealschildren.

The problem of taking away children from Ukrainian refugees in European countries requires measures from the authorities of the European Union and its member countries, and not from the United Nations (UN), says Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Dmitry Polyansky. According to him, if EU countries do not recognize the existence of this problem, it will not be possible to solve it.

“Here the problem lies rather in the legal framework of the European Union, which has a very unique interpretation of the rights of refugees and child custody, which allows numerous violations to be committed,” Polyansky told Izvestia. — All this, of course, also comes down to corruption, which is thriving in Ukraine, and, unfortunately, refugees and children who end up there fall into a gray legal zone and are deprived of many rights, which some absolutely shameless businessmen and criminals take advantage of.

Polyansky emphasized that Ukrainian refugees face “lawlessness” and “lawlessness” in the EU, which affects basic human rights. In Europe, meanwhile, they are trying not to notice this, says the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN. Russia, in turn, is trying to make this topic public.

“Our public signals on this matter help in a number of cases. The authorities, on whom something depends, are trying to avoid scandals and in some cases are accommodating to refugees,” Polyansky noted.

However, he admits that Russian diplomats have very little leverage in this matter. Firstly, the Russian Foreign Ministry cannot directly help citizens of a foreign state, and secondly, careless or premature publicity of a particular case can, on the contrary, harm a person, the diplomat emphasized. Nevertheless, he noted that Russia will not abandon this topic and will continue to raise it at the UN level.

“We will draw attention to the facts, try to help people who give us consent to reveal their identity and problems with the help of our information resources, but objectively our capabilities here are limited,” Polyansky explained.