Ukrainian refugees will ask for Russian citizenship so that the EU cannot take their children, the pro-Kremlin press writes. In reality, it is Moscow that has kidnapped and deported Ukrainian children.
Propaganda: Ukraine does not protect its refugee minors on EU territory
NEWS: “Russia will defend the Ukrainian children taken by the European authorities. As a result of unresolved issues, Ukrainians will understand that they must obtain Russian citizenship.
Russia will have to help the Ukrainian refugees whose children have been taken by guardianship authorities in Europe. Moscow can only help those who have Russian citizenship. Otherwise, Russia has few levers of influence over the situation, Maria Lvova-Belova, representative of the Office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights attached to the President of the Russian Federation, told URA.RU, commenting on Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's statement on the creation of a parliamentary committee [ …].
“We receive a lot of complaints from Ukrainian citizens who have gone to Europe as refugees against the authorities taking their children by force. Our parliamentary committee will deal with this issue”, Lavrov said.
[...] “Now, Ukraine does not want to argue with the European states. To somehow help in this situation, it is necessary to recall ambassadors, send diplomatic notes, organize protests. A scandal is needed, but Kyiv cannot do anything now. Under these circumstances, parents are turning to us out of desperation”, says Aleksei Ispolinov, expert in international law. He adds that Russia would have more possibilities to help if the children's parents applied for Russian citizenship […].
For them, the embassies of Russia and Belarus are diplomatic representations of countries that are not foreign to them, where everyone speaks their native language.
NARRATIVE: Ukrainian refugees will apply for Russian citizenship to protect their children in the EU.
Reality: Kyiv is dealing with the issues facing its citizens who became war refugees, while Russia has abducted and deported Ukrainian children
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, there have been a number of problems caused by differences in legislation and the lack of documents for Ukrainian citizens. As a result, there has been interaction between specialized institutions in the European states and refugee minors from Ukraine, but it’s never been about taking them by force.
According to the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian authorities are aware of every situation that has arisen in the European states regarding minors who have become war refugees. He told TSN that most of the problems arise from legislative differences. “In Ukraine, the grandmother is automatically considered the guardian of the grandchild, and in most European states this is not the case. The European authorities have initiated various procedures. We have intervened and explained the situation”, said Ukraine’s Ombudsman.
According to the Kyiv official, many children have arrived in the EU without documents and they still don’t have passports. Given early notice to deal with this problem, many Ukrainians have done nothing and are now considered illegal in the EU. “I’ve recently talked to the ombudsmen of the Italian regions, I asked them to solve each case. I told them each child's name. All the announced situations have been resolved”, Lubinets says.
Against this background, the problems facing Ukrainian refugees in the EU are used by the Russian propaganda as evidence that Ukraine is a state that does not care for its citizens. Moreover, according to false narratives from Russia, Kyiv does not want to quarrel with the European states and leaves Ukrainian minors and their parents without any help. The involvement of Ukrainian diplomats in solving the refugee problem is ignored by the Russian state media.
For these reasons, the experts cited in Russia are predicting an increase in applications for Russian citizenship. The reader is left with the impression that Ukrainian refugees are abandoned by their state and are desperately asking for help from Moscow or even Belarus. Claims about Ukrainians' desire to obtain the citizenship of the state that militarily assaulted them and forced them to leave their country are only conjecture and not based on evidence. Starting from a grain of truth regarding the situation of some Ukrainian minors in the EU, who do not have documents or who have arrived in foreign countries without their parents, the Russian media concludes that Ukraine is not helping them because it does not want to upset the West, which is not true.
Moreover, the false narrative is promoted in the Russian-speaking information space to exonerate Russia. In April this year, 49 UN and EU member countries condemned Russia for abusing the rights and privileges of a permanent member of the Security Council to spread disinformation about the “widespread abductions of thousands of Ukrainian children”. In early May, the OSCE published a report according to which a large number of Ukrainian children were deported to Russia and its occupied territories. The OSCE says that Russia has violated the rights of the Ukrainian children illegally taken to Russian territory , which could at some point be classified as crimes against humanity. 45 member countries requested an investigation into the deportations of Ukrainian children.
Veridica has dismantled other false narratives from the Russian Federation regarding the situation of civilians in the context of the war in Ukraine. According to the Russian propaganda, Ukrainian children are being sold in the West , and the losses of the Ukrainian army are so big, that students are forced to donate blood for soldiers. The Russian press also wrote that only Russian-speakers in the east are mobilized because their extermination has been planned , and Kyiv gives money to those who trick their friends into enlisting.
