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Ukraine: The Latest
‘Imminent’ coup rumoured in Russia as Moscow internet cut off & Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children a ‘crime against humanity’, UN says
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A
The telegraph. I'm Francis Dernley and this is Ukraine. The latest today as one of Russia's largest oil facilities is struck in a Ukrainian attack. And the war in Iran continues to sow chaos on global energy markets. We examine growing pressure on European governments to ease sanctions on Russia, just as US representatives meet one of Putin's chief economic advisers in Florida. Alongside the latest updates, we then bring you a special exclusive interview with one of the authors of a groundbreaking United nations report on the Ukrainian children taken to Russia.
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B
Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.
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A
The Russia does not want peace.
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C
If I'm President, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.
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B
We are with you. Not just today or tomorrow, but for 100 years.
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Nobody's going to break us.
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C
We're strong.
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A
We're Ukrainians. It's Thursday 12 March, four years and 16 days since the full scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by our associate editor of Defence, Dominic Nichols, and later Pablo de Graif, Commissioner at the independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine at the United Nations. But first, over to Dom for the latest in the military realm.
- [01:44]
B
Well, thanks, Francis. And let's start inside Russia. One of the largest oil facilities in southern Russia is currently on fire after a suspected Ukrainian attack. If it's not Ukrainian, I'll be delighted to know what it was. Anyway, this is Russia's strategic oil storage facility in Krasnodar Krai. It's been producing an enormous thick trail of black smoke all morning after being hit. You'll see these images on social media. I've been looking at them for the last few hours. Now, a member of the sbu, the Security Service of Ukraine, speaking to our colleagues at the Kyiv Independent, said today's strike on the Tikorets oil hub, which is the only supply branch delivering petroleum products to Novorossiysk, remember, that's Russia's Black Sea. Well, the home of the Black Sea fleet now delivered a significant blow to the enemy's oil logistics. The source said the operation was carried out by the SBU's Alfa Special Operations Center. Now, Russian authorities have confirmed the attack on the oil pumping station and then rather helpfully said that they had deployed 26 pieces of equipment to extinguish the fire. Again, very specific. Now, this comes after the Kosogorsk metallurgical plant in Russia's Tula Oblast also went up in flames overnight. So now we are about 300 kilometers northeast of Ukraine. No further details about that Russia's not said anything, neither does Ukraine. So we don't know what caused it, if it was hit by something. However, images, again you'll find doing the rounds are very smudgy, very light, large mushroom cloud over the site. And that strike, of course, comes a day after Ukraine launched Storm Shadow, British Storm Shadow cruise missiles at a Russian microelectronics factory in Bryansk Oblast. Now, after that, Moscow has threatened, quote, a fundamentally new level of destruction and human casualties. They're nice people, aren't they? This was a statement put out yesterday by Russia's Foreign Ministry. They said Western states bear full responsibility for the consequences of this strike, which resulted in civilian casualties. They say seven people were killed, 42 injured, or no way of verifying that. The statement went on. The goal of London and other Western capitals is clear to disrupt the peace process through large scale provocation. This, I imagine, will be their latest excuse for not seriously engaging in any peace negotiations, which we think might start again next week. They finished their statement saying Britain has gone beyond the norms of international law and is ready to take the conflict to a fundamentally new level. Now, I spent hours on the phone trying to get somebody at the Russian embassy to speak to me because I wanted to ask them what they considered the norms of international law to be. But they didn't answer any of my calls. Must be calls a couple of times. And then they've clearly put me on a list that this number just goes to. Yeah, goes to rubbish. It just rings out.
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A
Don't take it personally, Dom.
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B
Well, no, I do and I'm delighted, I do. But if you want to come on and talk to us, Russia, and tell us what you think the norms of international law are, there's a seat here for you. Anyway, Yesterday, across Ukraine, 77 of 94 drones brought down by electronic warfare, shot down or fell out of the sky of their own accord. This is according to Ukraine's air force. Five people killed across the country and 100 injured. Now, when I saw that, I thought it was a very odd statistic. It's completely out of kilter with a sort of normal ratio, you might think a huge number of injuries for the deaths caused there. Now, most injuries were in Sumy. Sumy Oblast, where more than 40 police officers were injured when a drone hit an administrative building in Shostka. This is about 120km northwest of Sumy City. It's one of the most northerly points in Ukraine, only about 30ks from the border or thereabouts. 21 civilians were also hurt when A Russian drone hit their minibus in Kherson. We've reported many times about the so called human safari down in Kherson. I wonder if this was more of the same. There are also a high number of injuries in Zaporizhzhia, both in the city itself and in the wider region there after glide bombs fired across the area. So lots of injuries across the country, especially as I say, compared to the relatively low number of the people killed. But that is in no way to diminish the deaths. And so let's just briefly zoom in on one in Mina in Chernihiv Oblast, about 100 km west southwest of Shostka, where we mentioned A moment ago Governor Vlasislav Chaus said a 15 year old girl had been killed last night, killed in her sleep and her parents both hospitalized after a drone destroyed their house. So yeah, the numbers may be low, but doesn't hide the tragedy behind each one. Now elsewhere there's lots of chat. You'll catch stray voltage on this. Lots of chat about Internet outages in Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia triggered by fears of an imminent coup, apparently by figures close to Sergei Shoigu. Remember him? Off, you know, former Defense Minister and still a senior security official. This comes after last week. Was it last week or this week? God, the days are. Anyway, remember we spoke about the arrest of former Deputy Defense Minister Rusland Salikov, who was one of Shoigu's deputies, long term friend of Shoigu. And I was speculating at the time that there must be no matter whatever Salikov did. But this is also a message to Shoigu, clearly holds some influence still in Moscow.
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A
Did you meet Shoigu once? You met? So you were there when you were with Wallace in Moscow?
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B
Well, I mean I was in the same building, the Russian Ministry of Defense, but I didn't actually get to say hello. He was at the other end of the corridor.
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A
You won't be going back anytime soon?
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B
No, no, not, not planning to. Well, I can't now. They won't let us, will they? Anyway, so users in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been reporting major Internet outages in the last few days. A lot of people speculating that this is coups, all the rest of it. The Kremlin have said the restrictions are designed to ensure security without giving any more details, which doesn't massively help their cause, that they're not worried about a coup. But I think the story is pro. Probably rubbish. I hope it's not. It'd be delighted to come on to more important massive coup in Moscow. But I think it's probably Internet going out because they are terrified about drones and what have you. But you know, we shall see. However, something that we know definitely did happen, a PBS interview with Oleksandr Commission. So Oleksandr Commission was Ukraine's minister of strategic industries from 23 to 2024. Prior to that he was the chief executive of the state owned Ukrainian railway system. He was credited with revitalizing the technical aspects of the railway system, then put in charge of strategic industries, drones basically to knit together industry and the government. Well, he's now an advisor to President Zelenskyy on strategic affairs and concurrently president of the Ukrainian Chess Federation. So we need to get to Malcolm to have a chat, but he was in this interview with PBS News. He says 11 countries in the Middle East, Europe and the United States have requested official assistance for Ukraine counter drone experience. So the kit and the experience. I raise this because I think there's a race on right now for Ukraine to profit in terms of political support before their moment in the counter drone sun passes. So as we know, President Zelensky has dispatched a number of advisors and a lot of interceptor drones and what have you to to the Middle east to try and bring down the Iranian drones that Ukraine has quite a lot of expertise in.
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A
Just a bit.
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Just a little bit. So Donald Trump's sons, Eric and Don Jr. They, as was reported, I think yesterday, they're now backing a new tactical drone company. This drone company already does business with the Pentagon. So Autonomous Power Corporation, that's the existing drone company that's merging with the Trump boys golf course company. Stick with me. It sounds odd, right? But the golf course company and this drone company are going to merge. They're going to trade as a company called Power U.S. or maybe Power U.S. i don't actually know how you pronounce that because it's brand new. But Power also investing in this thing is a company called unusual machines. Don Jr also holds a stake in that. So basically the Trump boys are getting into the drone business big style. They've seen that these things are under huge demand. They're small unit cost, eminently scalable. It's a good business opportunity, great geopolitical need. What's not to like? However, I just take you back to Tepid Oil. You'll remember this with great fondness about what military capability is. Military capability is more than just the kit. That's the e, the equipment of Tepid Oil. But you need the training, the equipment, the personnel the information about how you're going to run it. You need the doctrine about how you're going to fit it into your military system, the organization about who's going to operate it, intelligence and logistics. Okay, so you need all that stuff to make a military capability work. So just having the thing, the actual block of metal and what have you, the drone itself is just one part of it. Now, Ukraine has been able to innovate the actual technology and scale it up, but they've also, over four years of hard fighting here, they've developed the wider systems. So the intelligence feeds that tell you where to look and where to fire these things, they've got the electronic warfare that can help bring some of the things down or to vector you on, they've got other hard kill systems. So if the interceptors don't work, you've got just good old machine guns and heavy calibre machine guns, that kind of thing. So you've got redundancy in your counter drone capability. They've also, as we well know, developed the National Air Alert System to let the civilian population know when to take cover, when these things are happening. So put all that together and you've got a counter drone system. Just the drone itself is just one small part. So you need all of that to then have a system. And you can bet your bottom dollar or any dollars you have, lads, that the uae, Qatar and all the others do not have that system yet. They're going to get the drones, that's fine, but you need the whole thing to be able to say you've then got a counter drone capability. So there's a brief moment of time here when Ukraine can shine, can not only supply the kit, but also the expertise about how to build that wider system. And it's in this moment when they can extract the maximum political leverage for their support to fight Russia. Because their capability in terms of developing the actual drones themselves will soon be eclipsed by the scale of the power rush. When the Trump boys get involved, they're going to be able to develop millions of these things, thousands, very quickly, and they will soon be able to dwarf the numbers of drones that Ukraine is producing. But it's that wider system that's the most important thing. So I think there's a race on at the moment for Ukraine to use this moment and leverage maximum political support, support before the rest of the world, led by the Trump boys and their golf course company catches up. That's us up to date for us.
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A
Well, thanks, Tom. Just on that particular point, the Saudis have apparently almost agreed a large arms package with Ukraine. I'm imagining that they are one of the 11 countries that Zelensky spoke about. So it speaks to this being, as you say, Keeves moment to shine, as it were. We don't know any other details beyond that, but obviously Kyiv is hoping that they'll gain some political leverage as a consequence of this, that there may be that the Saudis will put some sort of pressure on Russia. I think personally that's unlikely because the profits that many Gulf states have made from evading sanctions in essence is considerable. But nonetheless, there is an opportunity here for new dialogues, new relationships to be forged, and clearly Kyiv is keen to make the most of that. But in terms of the more significant developments today, there are reports that Russia has earned an additional $6.9 billion in just two weeks of fighting between the US and Iran, with the additional earnings of $588 million a day. So that's enough for Russia to in theory purchase 17,000 shahed drones every 24 hours. Now obviously they can't produce that or purchase that, but nonetheless that gives you a sense of the scale of just how two weeks of the war in Iran have sown chaos on the energy markets. Now it speaks to the windfall in the short term that the war has gifted Moscow. Despite US efforts to ease the markets, the oil price continues to exceed around $100 a barrel, leading to several world leaders having to consider methods to reduce the price even further. According to the Financial Times, the EU is weighing whether to lift sanctions on several individuals trading Russian oil. President Erdogan of Turkey is said to be lobbying in favor of a Russian oligarch called Alisha Usmanov ahead of Sunday deadline to extend the EU's sweeping package of Russia related restrictions which needs to be, as we've talked about many times, re approved by all 27 member states every six months. Hungary and Slovakia, the usual suspects, are also lobbying to delist other individuals. So I think we can expect the next few days to be quite significant in terms of whether or not Europe holds the line on the sanctions front. Meanwhile, as I alluded to in the introduction, we learned today that Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has held talks with President Trump's representatives in Florida as the White House considers easing sanctions of its own. So Dmitriev, just as a reminder, is one of the top economic advisers to Putin, though US Envoy Witkoff didn't reveal what was discussed between them. But I think we can guess. Now, speaking of Moscow, as Dom mentioned, the city has reportedly Been without Internet for days. We'll be exploring that in further detail with our Russia analyst James Kilner next week. But there are also some interesting reports that St. Petersburg University have started recruiting students for military service. They're apparently promising incredible conditions, including academic leave, a scholarship of 50,000 rubles, a place in the best dormitory. I mean, whether that would be enough to persuade you to go to war, I don't know. But anyway, it depends on the room, I guess. And a payment of 7 million rubles in the first year of service. Now if that is true, then it would suggest that the need for men at the front may mean that at last the populations of the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, deliberately shielded from this war in many respects are potentially starting to feel the heat. But it is just too early to say. But to end with another day and another attempt by the Hungarian government to use Ukraine as a reason to re elect Prime Minister Viktor Orban. A Hungarian delegation is apparently travelling to Ukraine to assess the condition of the Druzhba oil pipeline and push for the rapid restoration of oil transit to Hungary. It's what many are calling another political stunt. Kyiv has said in response that this morning a group of Hungarian citizens entered the territory of Ukraine under general rules for all citizens of the Schengen area using a visa free regime. Any person for tourist purposes can enter Ukraine from Schengen countries in this way. And this group does not have any official status or scheduled official meetings on the territory of Ukraine. So it is definitely incorrect to call them a delegation. But that isn't the most extraordinary action by the Hungarians in the last 24 hours, who it's very important to remember are currently blocking the 90 billion euro loan agreed by the EU in December to be given to Ukraine. Orban has accused Ukrainians of plotting to attack his family, releasing a video last night purporting to show him speaking to his daughters on the phone. Soon I'm sure you'll see on the news that the Ukrainians have threatened not only me but you as well. He says, apparently rather emotional. My kids and my grandkids, we have to take this seriously. But we must not be scared now. These apparent theatrics are all in response to a retired Ukrainian politician who served in the security Service in the 1990s. He's a fringe figure known for making extreme statements who appeared on television this week and warned Orban that if he didn't alter his anti Ukraine Ukrainian stance that some self appointed vigilantes might pursue him. So this would be the equivalent of a talking head ranting on a random chat show, and then the prime minister or president of your country equating that as a direct threat by a foreign government. Quite extraordinary. But it all comes across, to be honest with you, and it is worth watching a bit cringe and desperate, especially for a man who pitches himself as a serious statesman on the world stage and who claims to speak the truth. But that brings us up to date in terms of the military and political realms. Now for our special interview for context. The independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was established by the Human Rights council of the UN in March 2022 to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights relating to the aggression against Ukraine by Russia. Its previous reports described the systematic use of sexual violence and torture in detention facilities and exposed new widespread war crimes against civilians. Its latest report, published this week, focuses primarily on children. As you're about to hear it discovered that deportations of children began during the week preceding the invasion, changing our understanding of those critical days and that Russian authorities have orchestrated from the very highest level of the state the unlawful deportation and transfer of children en masse to 21 Regions of Russia or occupied areas, a war crime under international law, as well as participating in RE education practices. Four years on, 80% of the children investigated by the inquiry, deported or transferred, which only scratches the surface of the true number, have not been returned. Commissioner Pablo de Graif, a Colombian academic and human rights activist, is one of the UN commissioners who authored this report. I speak to him again exclusively for Ukraine. The latest Please note that the interview you're about to hear features graphic descriptions of abuses, including torture. There are links to the report and other papers in the show. Notes the Commissioner begins by summarizing the report's methodology and the evidence required for its conclusions.
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C
Now, we have interpreted this with regard to most violations as requiring two independent sources of confirmation for the events that we receive as allegations or that we come across. I say that most because of, for example, in the case of sexual violations, a typical crime which occurs without witnesses many times, of course, the only testimony that you have is the testimony of the victim plus whatever corroborating evidence he or she because in this conflict men have also been the victims of brutal sexual violation. So whatever corroborating additional evidence, like for example, medical records and things like that, but for the most part we require two independent sources of confirmation. So we are quite rigorous with respect to the methodology. So that's the standard, the threshold that collected evidence has to cross in order for us to take it as grounds for a reasonable conclusion then, in terms of investigatory methods. So, Francis, this is of course, a huge conflict, very complex and huge, both territorially and in terms of happenings. So lines move in very different places. There are attacks in many different locations. The front line is more than 1,000 miles in length, and we have a fairly small staff. So we cannot claim ever that we are doing completely exhaustive investigations about any category of violations that we have addressed. So, for example, in the case of children, in the last report and in the conference room paper, we have been able to verify the forcible transfer, the deportation of 1025 children that everyone knows is the tip of the iceberg. Although I do not think that there is anyone who knows the precise number of children. No one thinks that it is just 1025. And we know for a fact that there are many more than that.
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A
Well, just on that, if I may, it's worth us just underscoring that point. I mean, we know that Yale has said a minimum of 35,000 verified, but the Ombudsman for Ukraine puts the number at around 150,000. Extraordinary figure. And the Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights has given it at over 200,000. Somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 children.
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C
That's right.
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So as you say, it scratches the surface. But nonetheless, those few cases that you talk about, and we'll come into some specific ones shortly, are indicative.
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C
That's exactly right. So I was citing this as an example of what we know is a sample of cases, but that are nevertheless sufficient to reveal patterns. And in this case, for example, the pattern of institutional coordination that was required in order to transfer or to deport these 1025 children, of which more than 80% have not returned. And therefore we have examined what type of institutional network, what type of institutional coordination is necessary to keep 80% of 1,025 children from returning to Ukraine. And what we have found in this example, in this case is as for example, we found also with respect to torture, to illegal det. And to force disappearances, that there is a great deal of institutional coordination in order for these crimes of this magnitude to take place over a long stretch of time. So different authorities, and of course, with respect to different types of violations, they vary, but nevertheless different authorities. In the case of children from the military that transports children in airplanes, airplanes that belong to the military, that land in military fields, they collaborate. The judiciary collaborates corroborating adoption certificates. The Duma, the legislature, has acted by transforming laws having to do with the Nationality of the children, because in late Russian Federation legislation, non Russian children could not be adopted. So the solution to that problem was to give Russian citizenship automatically to the children that are transferred or deported so that they can be adopted. But this required legislative action and they did it. That begins to illustrate the institutional thickness of the web that is required in order to perpetrate crimes at this scale and of this magnitude.
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A
Well, you talked about the timing there, Commissioner, and one of the things that really struck me about the report is that you talk about cases of this beginning already during the week before the start of the 24th of February 2022. I've got lots of other things to ask in relation to the timescale, but first I can tell that this is something that draw your eye as well.
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C
Yeah, that's right. So to be honest, of course we were surprised by the finding because again, this is not something that has come out in the press before or in other reports. But a week before the full scale invasion took place, children were already being transferred out of Ukrainian territory, which also suggests a bit of foresight and advanced planning with respect to children.
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A
And that may have some ramifications for our understanding of when certain decisions were made about when to launch the full scale invasion. That's something that I'm sure many people will be very interested by using that as an indicator on a sort of hour by hour, almost timescale. But I've interviewed officials from several governments who have been very critical of reports on this issue, I would argue for political reasons themselves, including, I have to say, the previous report of yourself and by the UN saying that it only tells one side of the story, that only hearing the victims and the Ukrainian perspective. And another thing I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about is the fact that this report also includes testimony from 85 Russian deserters. And could you just talk a little bit about what their testimony relayed?
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C
So that's another topic that we addressed in this report, the treatment of combatants in the Russian armed forces, but the very same forces. And the picture is absolutely horrendous because it is a picture of also quite systematic violence, intimidation and abuses of dignity of the worst kind against people who, for example, refuse to engage in what they say were more or less suicidal missions. There are the allegations, not unfamiliar, about the fact that troops are used as cannon foddering. We have, for example, a video of Russian commander referring to his own soldiers as disposable material and these people who deserted and that we were able to interview corroborated that this was exactly the type of treatment and that the punishments included executions, torture, being buried in pits, being tied, wearing only underwear during wintertime, being tied to trees and leaving them there, of course, to freeze to death, tortures of very different kinds. And this is something that, according to the testimony that we received, was either ordered and in some cases perpetrated by commanders themselves. So this is not just something that takes place amongst the rank and file out of the initiative of, for example, particularly cruel individuals that take it upon themselves to harass someone else. Now, this is a matter of orders for which the commanders are responsible, and that again, in some cases they are participants in themselves.
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A
A very important finding. And in relation to the children aspect, I think it's worth just quoting from the report with regard to the culpability of Russian authorities. You say the Russian authorities at the highest levels, including Mr. Putin and entities directly answerable to him, as well as authorities at the regional level and in the Russian occupied areas of Ukraine, have coordinated practical modalities to carry out these deportations and transfers and to further relocate the children in the Russian Federation. These acts have been committed following a consistent and carefully organized plan, a modus operandi initiated already before the full scale invasion. So at the very highest level, is this the first example, and forgive me if I'm wrong, where a member of the Security Council has been identified in this manner as being culpable of crimes against humanity?
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C
This is not the first of our findings of crimes against humanity. We had prior ones on torture and forced disappearance and other violations. But yes, the Commission is the first, first official body that establishes that a permanent member of the Security Council is committing crimes against humanity.
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A
And what, may I ask, are the ramifications of that? Are there any legally within the legal apparatus of the Security Council, within the UN itself, that would lead to consequences of that? How much you, how much power, not your body specifically, but how much power does the UN have to lead to consequences as a result of this?
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C
Well, part of the answer to that question has to do with the internal politics of the Security Council, about which I will refrain from pronouncing myself, as you may understand. But I will just want to emphasize that crimes against humanity as genocide are non amnestic crimes according to international law. International law that is binding on every state, and of course, with respect not just to this conflict, but to every. Every conflict. And therefore, it seems to me, very important, particularly perhaps, for permanent members of the Security Council to abide by the norms that the body is entrusted with husbanding and Protecting and promoting. The Security Council is the body of the United nations that is in charge of peace and security. And it seems to me that ignoring international law concerning the gravest of all violations is a pretty serious issue.
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A
You may not want to comment on this, but I feel like it's important to give some context here. We reported how when there were the, I think it was the 29 point plan, there have been so many different ones, it's hard to keep track. That was put forward first of all by Russia and agreed in principle by the United States States that then obviously things got complicated. The Ukrainians got involved and trimmed it back by about 10 points. But in the original draft of that, there was an amnesty for any war crimes, crimes against humanity committed by Russians or by Ukrainians on Ukrainian territory. And you're saying that under international law that is actually not possible, that these things are not. You cannot have an amnesty for these. That's correct.
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C
That's exactly right.
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A
Right.
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C
And since Kofi Annan was General Secretary, the policy of the United nations, very explicitly, and this was something that took place regarding the Lumeo Agreement and the settlement of the conflict in Sierra Leone, the policy of the United nations is that the institution will not recognize peace agreements that include amnesties for or crimes against humanity and genocide because international law makes them non amnestable very clearly. And therefore, again, I do not want to comment on the politics of peace negotiations, but I just want to emphasize that, I mean, the law is there, among other things, to create guardrails and limits around which sustainable peace amnesticies ought to be negotiated. And again and again, we have seen in different cases around the world that giving amnesties for atrocity crimes, which is usually done in the name of achieving peace, has failed. And this is part of the explanation of why more than 50% of peace agreements have traditionally failed. Failed. We have, by contrast, examples of why accountability is important for the sustainability of peace, including, for example, the Dayton agreement that the U.S. negotiated for the settlement of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. That, of course, was a negotiation that was taking place in parallel with the operation of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which had already indicted three top leaders of the conflict that could not be present at Dayton, but the agreement was successfully completed. So this is just one example that puts the light to the idea that justice and accountability always have to be sacrificed for the sake of peace. If I may add one last illustration of this point, as you know, Francis, I'm Colombian. Colombia negotiated a peace agreement with the largest guerrilla group in the country after a 60 year old class conflict that did not include an amnesty, that included accountability measures and the establishment of a judicial mechanism for the adjudication of cases of people against whom there were accusations of having been invol in atrocity violations and the peace agreement, which of course has found difficulties. The difficulties, however, are not due to this point. They are due to entirely different considerations having to do much more with politics than with the fact that the agreement did not include general ambition yesterday.
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A
I understand. Well, while we're on the subject of international humanitarian law, I think it's important to pull out another bit of of the report which talks about how under international law there is a requirement for the consent of parents or legal guardians of children and if they cannot be found, the consent of the persons who by law or custom are primarily responsible for the care of them to be involved in their removal or anything involving their well being, to be honest. And it says, In June 2020, during a meeting with heads of delegations of African states, Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, declared, we evacuated entire orphanages and it was done legally because the directors of those orphanages were legal guardians of the children. However, and this is still quoting from the report, in the cases documented, the Russian authorities did not seek the consent of directors of institutions appointed by the Ukrainian government.
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B
Government.
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A
And that speaks to a pattern throughout the report that also talks about how this is not something that is happening in the background of the full scale invasion. This is an essential part of it. You talk about here how Putin had regular meetings and updates from the Presidential Commissioner for Children's rights. Putin praised and encouraged efforts to enable the permanent placement of these children in the Russian Federation and as you've already alluded to, adopted a decree to simplify the manner of acquisition of Russian citizenship for these children without parental care from Ukraine. An airplane traced to the Russian presidential fleet was used to transfer 50 children who'd been deported from Ukraine to Moscow oblast. So what we're speaking about here is a systematic, and I think that's the word to draw out here, a systematic process from the top that has been at every aspect almost of Russian operations here in the field. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but what are the legal ramifications of that under international law?
- [39:21]
C
So I am sure that you know this bit of international humanitarian law, but for the sake of the audience, I don't think it's useless to make the reminder in order to categorize a set of violations as a crime against humanity, three separate and distinct thresholds have to be crossed. The violations have to be widespread. That is an isolated case doesn't count. They have to be both geographically and numerically widespread. They have to be systematic, that is to say, they have to obey a pattern. And you need to be able to establish, for example, the institutional prerequisites of the widespread violations. And finally, the violations need to take place as the result of a policy. So those three criteria have to be satisfied in order to reach the conclusion that widespread phenomenon constitutes a crime against humanity. And in the case of children, to return to your question now more directly, that they are widespread. In fact, it's very easy to confirm because both in Ukraine and in occupied Ukrainian territories, the number of regions from which children have been either transferred or deported is quite large. The number of regions where the children have been placed on a permanent basis is also large. 21 regions in the Russian Federation. That the pattern is systematic was also eventually easy to establish. And in part because this is something of which so many high level Russian officials have boasted, starting with the president of the Federation, the Commissioner for the rights of the children, very ironically, I find, but also, for example, the so called heads of the again so called independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, the heads of those two occupied territories have boasted of their organizing and collaborating in the transfer and deportation of children. And once you start following those leads, you get to the institutional network that we have mentioned before, involving all branches of power in the Russian Federation, including the legislature and the judiciary, not just as to the executive. And therefore that also establishes and contributes to establishing the proof that this is the result of a policy, not just something that happens by natural causes, as it were, but that it was deliberately planned, very carefully executed and horrendously pernicious and horrendously crazy cruel violation of international law. Of the children that we investigated, the 1025 cases, most of them were children that were taken away from either families or institutions, largely institutions in 2022. So four years later, their parents are still clueless about the location they were doubts and the fate of children. And I cannot imagine a worse nightmare for a parent than being in a situation like that.
- [43:44]
A
There are many people who will be listening to that, who will be thinking about comparisons from the 1940s and the fact that then there were question marks about who knew about the operations that were taking place. And something that struck me in your report is how the Russian authorities refer to the deportations and transfers of children as evacuations. That was a term also very commonly used, shall we say, in that period. And this, as I say, is a different example because we know, and this has been gloated about by those at the very top of the tree, as it were.
- [44:18]
C
That's exactly right.
- [44:20]
A
And I wanted to ask you allude to specific cases here, and I just wonder if something it says in the report is the deep distress that this has caused for children, quotes one parent as saying, I'm still looking for my daughter and I'm terribly afraid of what she might think of me and how she survives in Russia, where many people hate Ukrainians. Are there any other case studies, examples from your report that particularly stuck with you? Just on the human level of the suffering that's going on in relation to.
- [44:53]
C
To this an incredibly tragic case of an adolescent male who was deported and placed in a foster family. The two cases actually very similar in nature, but with different outcomes. In both cases, the adolescent expresses the desire to return to his country of origin and to his family. In one case, the foster family calls the police and the police comes to the house, takes the child away for a conversation. And it illustrates, by the way, the willingness to use police authorities in order to enforce what they otherwise portray as a humanitarian gesture. So I think that there's right there, plain contradiction. The other case is even more tragic because after the young man, the young boy, he was not an adult yet expressed his desire to return, and he was prevented repeatedly from doing so or even from contacting his parents, he ended up committing suicide. And again, I think that that is horrendously, horrendously tragic.
- [46:30]
A
There are reports in your summary of children with disabilities or medical conditions who were not receiving the medical care that was required, people who weren't receiving sufficient food and nutrition either, descriptions of children losing weight, being left hungry, suffered from hunger during their time in institutions, and also accounts of indoctrination.
- [47:03]
C
Absolutely.
- [47:04]
A
And there's an example that's given in the report of a mother noting that by the time of her child's return, her child had forgot to speak Ukrainian, said that his favorite song was a Soviet Union army song. Children transferred and placed in institution reported that the staff had told them that Ukraine would soon become part of Russia, and the Ukraine no longer existed. According to one mother, the staff said to her son, your country does not exist anymore. Everything's burnt down and your parents have probably died. Three years on, he still suffers from trauma related to his transfer and has trouble sleeping. I mean, I just underscore to listeners and viewers at home that this is a report with Many, many examples like this, and it is worth reading in full to properly digest that. I have a couple more questions, though, on this subject, which is when you hear these kind of testimonies, Commissioner, and the lack, seemingly, of response to them in the international community at large, there has been, I think it's fair to say, a lack of conversation and honesty about the nature of this. Is it fair to ask, is international law still a meaningful full term?
- [48:12]
C
The difficulty that I have, Francis, is that the alternative is the law of the jungle. And therefore I don't think that we can afford the luxury of ceasing to believe in the relevance of international law. Of course, the question of whether it is complied with by whom, under what circumstances, is a complicated one. And our efforts show that in this particular conflict, international law is being violated in pretty systematic ways, and hence the different findings about crimes against humanity. But if I maybe allow that sort of personal comment here, I have always tried to avoid in my work falling into one of two extremes, one of a sort of romantic optimism that says that changing the world is easy, that transforming it can happen automatically, that it comes about, for example, through military impositions of short military operations of short duration, or through facile forms of persuasion. I think that that sort of romanticism is dangerous because it ignores some of the very real constraints that are found in complying uniformly and universally easily with international legal obligations. But on the other hand, I also do my best to avoid the opposite extreme, which is one of cynicism that says that because achieving compliance is difficult, it is not even worth trying. I think that, again, would lead us to the law of the jungle, to barbarism, and that in a certain sense, it is extraordinarily unfair to the victims. The victims of violations of disorder are not people who die or who suffer because of, for example, a natural disaster. They die or suffer because of deliberate decisions by a very large number of individuals, individuals fulfilling different institutional roles that are necessary in order to make this sort of violation possible across a long period of time. And therefore we owe it to the victims to remember that they did not die as a result of a natural disaster or of natural causes. They were murdered, they were abused, their rights were violated in the most horrendous way and with total indifference to the dignity of human beings. And therefore, I refuse to go to the idea that international law is meaningless. I don't think that's a luxury that we can afford.
- [51:52]
A
Commissioner, thank you very much for your time and for talking to Ukraine. The latest.
- [51:57]
C
On the contrary, thank you very much for your sustained interest. Francis. This is very, very important and from my standpoint, of course our mandate is to focus on this particular conflict. But we of course are convinced about the universality and the universal importance of international law and therefore would hope that, as you said, it is taken more seriously across the whole world.
- [52:37]
A
Ukraine the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles. Every episode featuring us in the studio maps and battlefield field footage is now available to watch on our YouTube channel. Subscribe at www.YouTube.com Crainethelatest. There's a link in the description. You can also sign up to the Ukraine the Latest newsletter. Each week we answer your questions, provide recommended reading and give exclusive analysis and behind the scenes insights plus diagrams of the front lines and weaponry to complement our reporting. It's free to for everyone including non subscribers. You can find the link to sign up in the episode description. If you appreciate our work, please consider following Ukraine the Latest on your preferred podcast app and leave us a review as it helps others find the show. Please also share it with those who may not be aware we exist. You can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing ukrainepodelegraph.co.uk we continue to to read every message. You can also contact us directly on X. You'll find our handles in the description. As ever, we're especially interested to hear where you're listening from around the world. And finally, to support our work and stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis and dispatches from the ground, please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get one month for free, then two months for just £1 at www.telegraph. ukraineTheLates Ukraine the latest was Today produced by Rachel Porter. Executive producers are Francis Dernley, Louisa Wells and David Knowles.
- [54:17]
B
My name is David Knowles. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye.