About 200,000 children are among the Ukrainians who were forcibly taken to Russia and scattered across the vast country, said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
These include children from orphanages, children taken with their parents and separated from their families.
“The purpose of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make those who are deported forget about Ukraine and not be able to return,” Zelensky said in an evening video address on Wednesday, International Day of the child.
Zelensky promised to punish the perpetrators, but said Ukraine would first show Russia on the battlefield that “Ukraine cannot be conquered.”
“Our people will not surrender and our children will not become the property of the occupiers,” he said.
Mr Zelenski said 243 children had been killed in the war so far, 446 had been wounded and 139 were unaccounted for, adding that those figures could be higher.
He then described the deaths of 11 children, calling them by their own names and saying they had been killed.
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