FT: Saudi Arabia and Turkey are in secret talks with Russia and Ukraine to return abducted Ukrainian children

Saudi Arabia and Turkey are trying to secure the return to Ukraine of children taken to Russia during the war.

Source. The Financial Times writes about this with reference to four sources. The secret talks have been going on for several months, with Roman Abramovich taking part in them.

Ukrainian and Russian officials have refused to comment on this, given the sensitivity of the topic, the newspaper writes. Ukrainian Children's Commissioner Daria Gerasymchuk told the FT that she has no direct contact with Moscow.

"Moreover, we are convinced that there can be no negotiations in this direction, because it is not about the exchange of prisoners of war, these are civilians, these are children," she added.

Solving the problem is complicated by the fact that neither side has counted the number of children taken away. And the different circumstances under which children were taken to Russia make it difficult to count them. Officials in Moscow and Kyiv are currently compiling the lists.

"There is one situation where mom and dad are on the territory of Ukraine. There is another where there is no mom and dad, but there is an aunt in Voronezh. The goal is to count all the children to understand how many there are, and then find the best solution for each child," said a source familiar with the talks.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia hope that Ukraine and Russia will be able to reach an agreement and return the children. The source noted that the issue is very sensitive, and "no one trusts anyone," so Moscow and Kyiv need an independent mediator who has information from both sides.

Saudi Arabia raised the issue of the return of the children at a meeting of representatives of individual G20 countries held in Copenhagen in June. Western countries have supported Riyadh in mediating the return of children, as they have in other issues, including the grain deal, the Za'atan nuclear power plant issue, and potential nuclear escalation.

The transfer of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia has led to the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Russian Children's Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. The UN called it a war crime, and the PACE called it genocide.

Background. Meanwhile, it has become known that the European Parliament has called on the court in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for Lukashenko for his role in the forced removal of Ukrainian children.