Russian forces 'kidnapped' 2,389 children from Donetsk, Luhansk, says US embassy
Categories: FOREIGN COUNTRIES
The US embassy in Kyiv cited Ukraine’s foreign ministry as saying that 2,389 Ukrainian children have been “illegally removed” from the Russian-controlled territories of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and taken to Russia. “This is not assistance. It is kidnapping,” it said in a tweet.Ukraine made a new appeal to Russia on Tuesday to allow humanitarian supplies into the besieged southern city of Mariupol and to let civilians leave, news agency Reuters reported. “We demand the opening of a humanitarian corridor for civilians,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Ukrainian television. Vereshchuk also said Russia’s armed forces were preventing humanitarian supplies from reaching residents of the southern city of Kherson. The battle for Ukraine’s strategic port of Mariupol raged on Monday, as Ukraine rejected a Russian offer to evacuate its troops from the besieged city. Russian bombardment continued to hit it and other cities in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Italian parliament on Tuesday that his country was on the brink of surviving its war with Russian forces that he warned wanted to break through to the rest of Europe. “For Russian troops, Ukraine is the gates of Europe, where they want to break in, but barbarism must not be allowed to pass,” he said. Zelenskyy said Mariupol has been devastated by Russian bombardments. City officials say it has no food, medicine, power or running water. “There is nothing left there,” Zelenskiy said in the video address.