The Security Service has collected a comprehensive body of evidence regarding the deportation of 53 Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk region to moscow in October 2022.

These are crimes committed by russian citizen Dmitry Gartsev – the so-called ‘former minister of health of the DNR (the so-called ‘donetsk people’s republic’) – and three of his accomplices:

• Svetlana Maiboroda – former head of the so-called ‘state service for family and children’s affairs of the DNR’;
• Vyacheslav Vysyagin – head of the seized Donetsk Regional Specialised Children’s Home;
• Viktor Goncharov – former director of the seized Regional Specialised Children’s Home in Makiivka.

As the investigation revealed, in the autumn of 2022, Gartsev, together with Maiboroda, instructed the heads of the occupying medical institutions to organise the removal of 53 young children to russia’s moscow region under the pretext of an ‘evacuation’.

The children from the care homes were first transported by bus from Donetsk to russia, and then by plane to moscow.

The Ukrainian children were subsequently placed in various social care institutions across russia, and later 28 of the young children were placed in the care of families of citizens of the aggressor state.

In doing so, the perpetrators violated the provisions of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly prohibits the forced individual or mass transfer or deportation of civilians from occupied territories to the occupying power, regardless of the motives. Any unlawful transfer constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law and is classified as a war crime.

On the basis of the evidence, SSU investigators have notified all four officials in absentia of their status as suspects under Articles 28.2 and 438.1 of the CCU (war crimes, committed by a group, upon prior conspiracy).

As the suspects are in hiding in the temporarily occupied part of Ukraine, efforts to bring them to justice for crimes against Ukraine are ongoing.

The investigation was carried out by the SSU Main Investigative Directorate under the procedural supervision of the Office of the Prosecutor General.