The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets has held a meeting with the Vatican's special representative Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who arrived in Ukraine on behalf of Pope Francis, as well as the Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas.

As Lubinets said on the Telegram channel on Monday, the parties met at the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights, which was opened on the initiative of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"I presented to the delegation from the Vatican a special report on the violation of the rights of Ukrainian children in the temporarily occupied territories and in Russia, information materials on human rights violations in Ukraine as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation. He told me that every Ukrainian child who is staying in Ukraine and went abroad felt the consequences of the war," Lubinets wrote after the meeting.

In addition, according to him, the occupiers are massively exporting Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories to the Russian Federation. "We don't know the exact number or where they are. However, we manage to return children home, and each such story is like a separate special operation," the Ombudsman noted.

He separately drew the attention of the delegation's representatives to the issue of the return of civilian hostages held by the Russian Federation. "We don't know the exact figure. However, this is tens of thousands of citizens of Ukraine, among whom there are priests of the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic churches," Lubinets said.

The Ombudsman expressed conviction that this visit of Vatican representatives to Ukraine "will once again demonstrate who the aggressor and who the victim is."

"Ukraine must liberate its entire territory, because this is the only mechanism for protecting children," Lubinets summed up.