A quarter of Ukrainians are still separated from their homes because of the Russian invasion, according to British intelligence.
It’s been almost 18 months since president Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine, and millions of Ukrainians remain displaced.
Ukrainian authorities report that 139,000 citizens have been evacuated from combat zones in the Ukrainian controlled areas of the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson in the last 12 months.
In its latest update on Twitter, The UK’s ministry of defence said: “This is just one part of Ukraine’s ongoing broader crisis of displacement.”
The UN also estimates 6.3 million Ukrainians remain refugees – most of them women and children – with five million still internally displaced.
While many civilians still live within Ukraine itself, many have fled from their home towns to the western side of the country to escape the violence. Others have left the country altogether.
The MoD claimed: “With a pre-war population of 44 million, a quarter of Ukrainians remain forced from their homes as a result of Russia’s invasion.”
On top of the deadly missile strikes coming from Russia, UNHCR points to Moscow’s destruction of civilian infrastructure as one of the driving factors forcing Ukrainians to leave their homes. The energy sector was particularly targeted last autumn, which left whole communities without consistent access to electricity, water and heating.
There’s also been major concerns about the deportation of Ukrainian children. Ukraine alleges more than 19,000 children have been illegally moved to Russia or Russian occupied land since the war began.
The International Criminal Court officially issued an arrest warrant for Putin because of his alleged involvement in abduction of children from Ukraine and possibly relocating them to Russia back in March, along with a warrant forf Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the president of the Russian Federation.
Russia initially rejected the allegations about children deportation and called the warrants null and void.
However, senior Russian politician Grigory Karasin, claimed on Monday: “In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine.”
Writing on his Telegram channel, he added: “It is well known that Russia, unlike a number of European countries, has always treated children with care and warmth.”
He pointed out that Moscow has set up a parliamentary commission to look into Ukraine’s supposed “crimes” against minors.
The ICC issued its first charges over these Russian war crimes last week, charging a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with taking children from a children’s home in Kherson.
These children were supposedly taken to Moscow and the occupied peninsula of Crimea. They’re said to be between one and four years in age.