The Kremlin has denied claims made by the UN that it violated children’s rights in Ukraine, claiming that instead its armed forces were rescuing youngsters from dangerous situations.
According to a significant study published on Tuesday, since the battle started in February of last year, Russia has been accused of imprisoning more than 800 civilians, including some children, and 77 civilians have been put to death.
According to the research, 480 attacks on schools and hospitals and 518 kid maimings were committed by Russian armed forces in 2022.
It also accused them of using 91 children as human shields.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular briefing that Moscow ‘firmly rejects’ such accusations.
‘Our military, repeatedly risking their own lives, took measures to save children, to take them out from under shelling, which, by the way, was carried out by the armed forces of Ukraine against civilian infrastructure,’ he said.
Russia regularly rejects accusations of human rights abuses in Ukraine and also denies deliberately targeting civilians in what it calls a ‘special military operation’.
Tuesday’s 36-page U.N. report, based on 70 visits to detention centres and more than 1,000 interviews, also said that Ukraine had violated international law by arbitrarily detaining civilians, but on a considerably smaller scale.