UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN General Assembly on Wednesday called for the immediate and unconditional return of Ukrainian children \u201cforcibly transferred\u201d to Russia \u2014 a delicate issue as Kyiv and Moscow try to negotiate an end to the fighting.<\/p>\n
The assembly adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of 91-12, with 57 abstentions. Russia was among the states rejecting the measure.<\/p>\n
The resolution \u201cdemands that the Russian Federation ensure the immediate, safe and unconditional return of all Ukrainian children who have been forcibly transferred or deported.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also calls on Moscow to \u201ccease, without delay, any further practice of forcible transfer, deportation, separation from families and legal guardians, change of personal status, including through citizenship, adoption or placement in foster families, and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting at least 20,000 Ukrainian children since the start of the conflict in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Mariana Betsa, Ukraine\u2019s deputy foreign minister, said Russia was responsible for \u201cthe largest state abduction operation in history.\u201d So far, more than 1,850 children have been found and returned home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be no just peace in Ukraine without the immediate unconditional return of our children back home,\u201d Betsa said from the podium before the vote.<\/p>\n
While Russia admits that some children were taken from combat zones for their own protection, Moscow\u2019s deputy UN envoy Maria Zabolotskaya slammed the resolution as \u201cfull of mendacious accusations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEach vote for the resolution is a support for lies, war, and confrontation. Every voice against is a vote for peace,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The vote in the UN General Assembly came as the United States \u2014 which voted for the resolution \u2014 tries to get both Russia and Ukraine to agree to its plan to end the war.<\/p>\n
But efforts to find a compromise have repeatedly stalled, while on the front lines, the Russian military continues to slowly advance \u2014 albeit with significant losses.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump initially gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until November 27 to respond to his latest plan, which would have included the ceding of Ukrainian territory to Moscow \u2014 a non-starter for Kyiv.<\/p>\n
But discussions are still ongoing.<\/p>\n
Late last month, after talks in Geneva, Zelensky hailed the progress made with US negotiators, notably the inclusion of \u201cextremely sensitive points\u201d such as the return of Ukrainian children he said were abducted by Russia.<\/p>\n
For the European Union\u2019s UN envoy, Stavros Lambrinidis, \u201cthe abducted children of Ukraine cannot wait for the final outcome, for the Russian decision to stop the war or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2023, the Russian army has been on a UN blacklist that names countries responsible for violating the rights of children in conflict areas, notably because of the apparent abduction of Ukrainian children.<\/p>\n
That same year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying there were \u201creasonable grounds to believe\u201d that he \u201cbears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation\u201d of Ukrainian children to Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN General Assembly on Wednesday called for the immediate and unconditional return of Ukrainian children \u201cforcibly transferred\u201d to Russia \u2014 a delicate issue as Kyiv and Moscow try to negotiate an end to the fighting. The assembly adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of 91-12, with 57 abstentions. Russia …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90568,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90552\/revisions\/90568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}