Melania Trump has revealed she received a letter from Vladimir Putin about the fates of children displaced in the Ukraine war.
Addressing the nation in a surprise announcement on Friday at 11 am ET, the first lady said Putin had signalled a “willingness to engage with me directly” about Ukrainian children now residing in Russia.
The Kremlin leader’s response comes after a letter from Melania was given to him during his Alaska summit with Trump in August, and amid alarming concerns over Donald’s health due to a mysterious visit.
“Since then, President Putin and I have had an open channel of communication regarding the welfare of these children. For the past three months, both sides have participated in several back-channel meetings and calls, all in good faith,” the first lady said.
She went on to add that eight Ukrainian children moved to Russia have been returned to their families in Ukraine.
Last year, Leonid Pasechnik, the Kremlin-appointed head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, announced that Russia was to “host” over 12,000 children from the eastern Ukrainian region that summer.
In addition to this, a programme titled “Useful Vacations” was announced to sponsor 40,000 Ukrainian children to “visit” Russia to attend summer camps.
Some children were scheduled to be taken as far as Vladivostok – located 6,000 miles east of Ukraine and just north of North Korea.
Researchers at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the proposed “camps” were “a fundamental component of Russia’s campaign to deport Ukrainians, including children, to Russia.”
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Forcibly transferring children “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” is classed as genocide under Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Abducted children are re-educated through a process of “Russification” which sees them banned from speaking Ukrainian and forced to learn Russian.
They are taught about Russian culture and history, while being exposed to propaganda. Some are taken to “patriotic” sites or forced to undergo military training.
The ISW report added: “Russian authorities will likely escalate deportation efforts throughout the summer under the guise of summer vacations, but these programs represent genocidal acts against the Ukrainian people despite Russian efforts to cloak them as temporary and positive educational opportunities.”
It is understood that children from occupied Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine were taken to the Vladivostok camp in the Russian Far East.
It comes after Donald and Melania’s unusual sleeping arrangements were exposed.
