The Security Service of Ukraine has collected evidence against two more individuals involved in deporting Ukrainian children to russia.

The first is Oleksiy Kulemzin, the head of the Donetsk occupation administration, and the second is Olena Verbovska, the head of the ‘department for family and children’s affairs’.

According to the investigation, they organised the deportation of Ukrainian children to the ‘Polyany’ holiday camp near moscow, which is under the jurisdiction of the russian president’s administration.

The suspects implemented the so-called ‘Decree No. 84’, signed by gauleiter Denis Pushylin, in this way.

The ‘document’ in question provided for the removal of minors from temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories to russia under the pretext of ‘rehabilitation’.

Pushylin enlisted the help of his ‘adviser’, Eleonora Fedorenko, and Svitlana Mayboroda, the former head of the ‘DPR’s service for family and children’s affairs’, to carry out this decision.

In the autumn of 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine notified them of their status as suspects in absentia for committing war crimes.

The investigation revealed that the officials organised the forced removal of at least 31 Ukrainian children to the russian federation. Among them were 16 boys and 15 girls.

The ruscists deported a further 22 Ukrainian minors from the temporarily occupied Mariupol district. Notably, three children were forcibly taken from their biological father, who was subsequently imprisoned in the Olenivka colony.

A further nine children were forcibly taken from children’s social centres in Shakhtarsk and Khartsyzsk.

As well as transferring the deportees to ‘putin’s resort’, some of the children were handed over ‘into the care’ of russian citizens.

For example, one child from Mariupol was handed over to Maria Lvova-Belova, the russian president’s commissioner for children’s rights.

By doing so, the suspects grossly violated the provisions of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the forcible transfer or deportation of persons from occupied territory.

SSU investigators have notified Kulemzin and Verbovska, in absentia, of their status as suspects under Articles 28.2 and 438.1 of the CCU (war crimes, committed by a group, by prior conspiracy).

As these collaborators are hiding in a part of Ukraine that is temporarily occupied, efforts to bring them to justice are underway.

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