Media State­ment

on the occa­sion of Ukraine’s Inde­pen­dence Day on 24 August 2023

18 months of the full-scale Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine

BRICS Sum­mit in South Africa

24 August 1991, Ukraine regained its Inde­pen­dence. That year 90,4 % of the pop­u­la­tion vot­ed for Ukraine to be a sov­er­eign coun­try and to have the right to deter­mine its future. Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty is inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised and should be respect­ed. 

Inspired to be demo­c­ra­t­ic and free coun­try, in 1994 Ukraine gave up the world’s third largest nuclear weapons arse­nal and joined non-pro­lif­er­a­tion treaty. But Inter­na­tion­al law was unable to defend Ukraini­ans from Russ­ian inva­sion in 2014. It was also unable to pre­vent Russ­ian full-scale war against Ukraine that start­ed in 2022. Today, Ukraine, the coun­try that gave up nuclear weapon is stand­ing against the inva­sion of the coun­try with­out nuclear weapon. Russ­ian war is impe­r­i­al and aims to destroy Ukrain­ian iden­ti­ty and to keep Ukraine as a colony.

For the BRICS sum­mit Russ­ian pres­i­dent who is fac­ing war­rant of arrest is not com­ing, how­ev­er, South African gov­ern­ment has not yet open­ly con­demn the war crimes that Rus­sia is com­mit­ting since 2014. 

20 August the Pres­i­dent Cyril Ramaphosa has stat­ed: 

The key pil­lars of our for­eign pol­i­cy include the pro­mo­tion of human rights, peace and sta­bil­i­ty and the strength­en­ing of trade and invest­ment ties with oth­er coun­tries.

It is not pos­si­ble to pro­mote human rights, peace and sta­bil­i­ty, with­out con­demn­ing the war crimes, mil­i­tary aggres­sion and nuclear-threat­ing rhetoric. 

We call on the Pres­i­dent Ramaphosa to fol­low the pil­lars of the for­eign pol­i­cy described and to clear­ly con­demn Russ­ian war against Ukraine, the vio­la­tion of the Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty and sys­temic vio­la­tion of basic human rights to life and lib­er­ty, force­ful depor­ta­tion of Ukrain­ian chil­dren to Rus­sia that Russ­ian pres­i­dent is per­son­al­ly respon­si­ble for. 

The Russ­ian mil­i­tary aggres­sion is also a cause of vio­la­tion of human rights on the African con­ti­nent. The ris­ing glob­al hunger, increased prices for fuel are direct­ly linked to the Russ­ian war against Ukraine

We are call­ing on world lead­ers attend­ing the BRICS sum­mit to:

• demand that Russ­ian author­i­ties stop the mil­i­tary aggres­sion against Ukraine and imme­di­ate­ly remove their mil­i­tary forces from the inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised ter­ri­to­ry of Ukraine; 
• demand Rus­sia to return to the Black Sea Grain ini­tia­tive, to stop bomb­ing of the Ukrain­ian agri­cul­tur­al infra­struc­ture and ports, so that the famine is pre­vent­ed;
• call on the Russ­ian author­i­ties to imme­di­ate­ly stop force­ful depor­ta­tion of Ukrain­ian chil­dren:

• Pro­vide the full list and where­abouts of Ukrain­ian chil­dren deport­ed to Rus­sia;
• Demand that chil­dren should not be force­ful­ly sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ents and care­givers; 
• Request to change the law that fast-tracks Russ­ian cit­i­zen­ship for Ukrain­ian chil­dren;

• call on Rus­sia to denounce the changes in the con­sti­tu­tion that legalise the land­grab of Ukrain­ian ter­ri­to­ry by the Russ­ian mil­i­tary forces.
• call on the Russ­ian author­i­ties to stop vio­lat­ing people’s right to free­dom of peace­ful assem­bly and expres­sion in their own coun­tries.

UAZA sup­ports civ­il soci­ety march­es dur­ing the BRICS sum­mit in dif­fer­ent cities of South Africa:

August 22, in Johan­nes­burg organ­ised by UAZA, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al and Helen Suz­man Foun­da­tion

August 23 — in Johan­nes­burg organ­ised by the BRICS from Below and Unit­ed Front Alliance

August 23 — In Dur­ban organ­ised by the South Dur­ban Com­mu­ni­ty Envi­ron­men­tal Alliance 

#Stand­WithUkraine #Sto­pRus­sianAg­gres­sion

For more infor­ma­tion: +27 767355501 Katery­na (Dur­ban) or +27 76 236 58 24 Anas­ta­sia Kor­pe­so [email protected]; www.uaza.co.za

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Force­ful depor­ta­tion of Ukrain­ian chil­dren

The Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion has active­ly and inten­tion­al­ly deport­ed more than dozen thou­sands of chil­dren from Ukraine to Rus­sia. Ukraine has iden­ti­fied and pro­vid­ed to the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross (ICRC) the names of 19,358 deport­ed chil­dren. Of these only about 13,000 have been locat­ed and as of May 2023, only 371 were released to return to their fam­i­lies and care­givers in Ukraine.

On 30 May 2022, Putin signed a decree that stream­lines the process of adopt­ing Ukrain­ian orphans or those with­out iden­ti­fied parental care and giv­ing them Russ­ian cit­i­zen­ship. Deport­ed chil­dren do not have the right to refuse Russ­ian cit­i­zen­ship. Instead, Russ­ian author­i­ties can issue Russ­ian cit­i­zen­ship in under 24 hours, and dur­ing this process can change a child’s name, sur­name and per­son­al data such as date and place of birth. As a result, rel­a­tives have no way of find­ing and return­ing their chil­dren. All this infor­ma­tion does not require jour­nal­ists’ inves­ti­ga­tions as it is offi­cial­ly stat­ed by Russ­ian leg­is­la­tion, and in Putin’s offi­cial state­ments.

Rus­sia has seized chil­dren from their schools, and their homes – includ­ing those liv­ing in insti­tu­tions, while oth­ers have been sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies dur­ing Russia’s so-called ‘fil­tra­tion’ process. The UN Com­mis­sion of Inquiry con­clud­ed that none of the cas­es exam­ined were jus­ti­fied by safe­ty or med­ical rea­sons, nor did they sat­is­fy the require­ments set forth by inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law. More­over, Rus­sia puts in place to pre­vent Ukrain­ian chil­dren from reunit­ing with their fam­i­lies and care­givers. Direct rel­a­tives or legal guardians must under­take a dan­ger­ous and cost­ly jour­ney to col­lect their chil­dren. Dur­ing this jour­ney, they face a high risk of arrest and inter­ro­ga­tion – as do those who help them. In some cas­es, par­ents arrive in Rus­sia only to learn author­i­ties have hid­den their child in a fos­ter home.

The depor­ta­tion, abduc­tion, and sep­a­ra­tion of chil­dren from their par­ents and fam­i­lies is the basis for an arrest war­rant for Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin by the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC). This is also a crime under cus­tom­ary inter­na­tion­al law, by which Ukraine, Rus­sia and South Africa are bound.

Sep­a­ra­tion of chil­dren from par­ents

In the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries, Russ­ian mil­i­tary forces pros­e­cute civil­ians for any expres­sion of Ukrain­ian iden­ti­ty. The process to detect this involves inter­ro­ga­tion, col­lec­tion of per­son­al data includ­ing mobile apps and social media posts, and forc­ing civil­ians to tes­ti­fy or make state­ments against Ukraine. This is known as a “fil­tra­tion process” and might also involve forced nudi­ty, tor­ture, ill-treat­ment and forced dis­ap­pear­ance. If any of the par­ents fails the “fil­tra­tion process”, chil­dren are sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies in bla­tant dis­re­gard of the Fourth Gene­va Con­ven­tion.

Abduc­tion of children’s iden­ti­ty and adop­tion into Russ­ian fam­i­lies

While in Russ­ian cus­tody [Ukrain­ian chil­dren are] exposed to a pro-Russ­ian infor­ma­tion cam­paign often amount­ing to tar­get­ed re-edu­ca­tion as well as being involved in mil­i­tary edu­ca­tion.

The forced trans­fer of chil­dren of one group to anoth­er for “Rus­si­fi­ca­tion” through adop­tion by Russ­ian fam­i­lies and/or trans­fer to Russ­ian-run orphan­ages or res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties such as “sum­mer camps”, is a vio­la­tion under Arti­cle II of the 1948 Con­ven­tion on the Pre­ven­tion and Pun­ish­ment of the Crime of Geno­cide, (the Geno­cide Con­ven­tion), to which both Ukraine and Rus­sia are par­ties.

About the Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of South Africa 

Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of South Africa (NPO 189–705) is a col­lab­o­ra­tive asso­ci­a­tion reg­is­tered in May 2017 that pro­motes net­works between Ukraini­ans and South Africans for mutu­al devel­op­ment, increased aware­ness and inner growth of indi­vid­u­als and soci­eties. For more infor­ma­tion www.uaza.co.za or [email protected]