Ukraine searches for and captures the children’s defender imposed by Moscow in Lugansk

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June 4 () –

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced this Tuesday that the children’s ombudsman imposed by Moscow for the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), Inna Mishchenko, is being sought by kyiv on suspicion of participating in the deportation of minors. Ukrainians to Russian territory.

“The Ukrainian special service processed data on the direct participation of the suspect in the deportation, the transfer to the invaders of the personal files of children from the temporarily occupied territory of the Luhansk region and their illegal transfer to Russia,” he said in a statement.

The SBU has launched a preliminary investigation under the direction of the Lugansk Regional Prosecutor’s Office. If convicted of the charges against him, Mishchenko faces a possible sentence of ten years in prison, as well as confiscation of his assets.

According to the SBU, Mishchenko joined the Prosecutor General’s Office of the RPL in 2014, which at that time unilaterally announced its split from Ukraine and years later, in 2022, it was annexed by Russia along with Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia. after referendums not recognized by the international community.

Shortly after, in December 2022, Mishchenko was appointed children’s ombudsman in the region on behalf of the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, Maria Lvova-Belova, who is precisely under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC). ) for the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

In March 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Lvova-Belova and against the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, under the presumption of war crimes for the forced deportation of Ukrainian minors from areas captured during the Ukrainian war to Russian territory. .