The European Court of Human Rights on June 13 ordered Russia to immediately return to orphaned children and their educators who were illegally taken to Russia from the city of Snizhne, Donetsk region of Ukraine, to Russia on June 12.

The lawsuit was filed by the Ukrainian Justice Ministry.

The court has also ordered Russia to provide explanations of the circumstances surrounding the illegal crossing of the Russian border by "the abducted orphans and their educators" by June 17, the press service for the Ukrainian Justice Ministry reported on Saturday.

The European Court of Human Rights has given this case priority status.

The Justice Ministry has also confirmed that the Ukrainian orphans are now being taken to Ukraine. However, Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said this does not exempt the people responsible for illegally taking them abroad from responsibility.

"The European Court of Human Rights will continue trying this case in regard of cooperation between the Russian Federation and terrorists, who illegally took Ukrainian orphans and held them on the territory of the neighboring state for more than 24 hours," the minister reported.

According to Ukrainian sources, a group of children from the city of Snizhne were intercepted by armed individuals on June 12 on their way to a camp in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The bus carrying the children later headed to the checkpoint Dolzhansky, Luhansk region.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Russia has breached several agreements by letting those people cross its border without appropriate documents.

Russian presidential children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said that the children were taken to Russia's Rostov region by their educators and they were not being held in Russia by force and the Ukrainian authorities can send their official representative for them. He said 14 orphans aged between four and 12 from the municipal orphanage of the city of Snizhne, Donetsk region of Ukraine, had arrived in the Donetsk region. The children were brought from Ukraine by two educators the night before and the educators asked for the children to be accommodated, he said. The children and their educators have been temporarily accommodated at the tourist base Donetska, he said.

Ukrainian General Consul in Rostov-on-Don Vitaliy Moskalenko said on June 13 the children had left for their homeland.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported in the early hours of June 13 that the children had left Rostov-on-Don for Ukraine on a plane.