Press release on the informal UN Security Council Arria-Formula Meeting on the evacuation of children from Russia’s special military operation zone

On April 5, Russia initiated an informal Arria-Formula Security Council Meeting dedicated to its efforts to evacuate children from the conflict zone.

Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of the Russian Federation Maria Lvova-Belova was the main reporter on the subject. In her report, she gave details of Donbass children going to other regions of Russia where they are given accommodation and made comfortable. She dispelled the Western media allegations that the children had been forcibly relocated and adopted, or made to accept Russian citizenship. She reported how her staff was working to find their parents and reunite families as well as to maintain contact with international organisations and volunteers. She presented videos and interviews with the children and employees directly involved in this work.

To support Ms Lvova-Belova’s report, well-argued remarks were delivered by Human Rights Commissioner of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Darya Morozova, Adviser on Children’s Rights to the DPR head, Eleonora Fedorenko, and experts on humanitarian support and rehabilitation. The speakers focused on the local civilians’ plight, the continuous shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine using NATO weapons, and operations by Russian health centres.

The meeting attracted much attention from UN delegations, the UN Secretariat, and the press. Predictably, representatives from a number of Western countries demonstrated hostile behaviour, walking out on several occasions in protest of reports they didn’t want to hear. Among other things, these theatrics are at odds with the spirit of the Arria-Formula format. These events are primarily intended to communicate to UN Security Council members and other delegations information, which cannot be obtained, for one reason or another, during the Security Council’s official meetings but which is nevertheless necessary for them to form a full picture of developments in a country on its agenda.

As could be expected, our former partners levelled a set of well-known and groundless accusations at Russia in connection with the child problem. All of them were promptly refuted by the Russian presenters.

Preparations for the meeting were complicated by attempts to prevent it from being held by the Western members of the Security Council. The UK delegation, for one, blocked the official live video reporting on the discussion, making this provocative and cowardly step out of an unwillingness to allow the spread of truthful information about the status of the children in the zone of the Russian special military operation. Despite this, the meeting was posted on YouTube and Telegram and attracted much attention from both Russian and Western audiences.

We will continue to convey to the UN Security Council and the world in general the objective picture on the status of the children in the zone of Russia’s special military operation.