The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has stated that reports of the illegal transportation of orphans from the town of Snizhne (Donetsk region) to Russia have been confirmed and added that Russia has violated a number of agreements by passing them through its border without proper permits.

"According the information proved by Ukraine's consul general in Rostov-on-Don and confirmed by the Ukrainian competent authorities, on June 12 this year the Russian side illegally allowed to transport to the territory of the Russian Federation without proper permits, but only on copies of birth certificates, 16 orphans from a group of Ukrainian citizens kidnapped in Snizhne by armed representatives of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic," the ministry said in a statement on Thursday evening.

The ministry said that as of now, "the abducted children are in the town of Donetsk, Rostov region of the Russian Federation."

The Foreign Ministry noted that thus, the Russian side had violated the provisions of the Ukrainian-Russian intergovernmental agreement of January 16, 1997, as well as its international obligations in the field of ensuring children's rights, in particular, Articles 11 and 35 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

"The transportation of children abroad in the absence of permitting documents helps qualify the actions of criminals as international child abduction under the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, with appropriate legal consequences for them and the other parties, with the assistance or connivance of which this crime was committed," the ministry said.

Due to the fact that the illegal transportation of Ukrainian children to Russia was established, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry immediately sent a verbal note to the Russian Foreign Ministry with an urgent demand to take "urgent exhaustive measures to ensure the prompt return of children to Ukraine and prosecute those involved in facilitating their illegal entry into Russia."