The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors: The Russian strategy to evade responsibility for war crimes

It took the Kremlin approximately the same time to devise and perfect its propaganda strategy to reprimand what might have been its strategic communications failure – i.e., self-incrimination in a war crime and testifying against itself in the court of public opinion (if not a court of law) that allowed the international investigators, in the first place, to gather enough evidence and made the first arrest warrants possible. In late June 2024, Ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova held a big press conference, where she reported on her institution’s accomplishments “despite unprecedented sanctions, pressure, and disinformation,” and presented The Bulletin on her activities “to protect children during a special military operation” in the “new and border regions.” 

Through the Russian Looking-Glass, and What the Ombudswoman Found There

Standing at a Foreign Ministry’s conference hall in front of journalists, including foreign ones, Maria Lvova-Belova, again tried to convince the world that Russia had been protecting children in the “new territories” from “Ukraine’s aggression” since “the very first days.” It might have taken the Kremlin a year of relative silence — a pause to brainstorm, strategise, and plan a counterattack on the information front. Yet now, the presidential commissioner, with the full weight of the Russian state behind her back, seems to be up in arms and on a propaganda offensive. 

Russia will certainly not go to court of its own volition, but it is building up its case, nonetheless. Its’ main abhorrent narrative is already clear: leave children outside of politics. This public Bulletin and the Ombudswoman’s public appearance outline the key messages that Moscow will now be pushing, with renewed force, onto the international arena. And we should pay attention. 

With the abundance of evidence against Moscow, it has chosen not to deny the transfer of children but rather to whitewash the crime and present it as a misunderstanding that Kyiv tries to exploit with the help of its western partners. In this information campaign, the Kremlin stays true to its old weapons of choice: whataboutism, gaslighting, diversion, and victim-blaming. As for the latter, the arrest warrant against Maria Lvova-Belova, in her own words, only “inhibits the process of reunifications,” hurting children and their families, first and foremost, but does not affect or impede the commissioner’s work. The ICC warrant only “created tension by erecting unnecessary barriers.” By portraying Russia as a criminal and demonising the ombudswoman, according to her, the Ukrainian government and Kyiv’s misinformed allies are scaring parents away from turning to the Russian authorities to help them search for the missing children. 

Manipulation No. 1 – Half-Truths and Truth-Twisting

Half-truths are another tactic, and an extremely dangerous one. First of all, Russia exploits legal terms such as “evacuation” when justifying, for example, moving children, many of whom with special needs, from an orphanage in Kherson to the annexed Crimea, as well as other forced displacements of civilian population from the occupied regions. 

Although international humanitarian law recognises the concept of evacuation, including a medical one, it imposes strict conditions, which Russia, by far, has not observed. For instance, in an international conflict, “No Party to the conflict shall arrange for the evacuation of children, other than its own nationals,” Article 78 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 stipulates. The evacuating party is then obliged to facilitate “the return to their families and country.”

The goal of such strict regulations is, in particular, to prevent illegal adoptions, which brings about the second point. Having initially been quite careless with the language (Maria Lvova-Belova herself infamously “adopted” a teenager from occupied Mariupol), Russia now urges caution and differentiation between adoption, foster care, guardianship, custody, etc. This legalistic bickering over status, especially in the light of credible reports of adoptions of Ukrainian children and changing their legal – in addition to erasing their national – identities, does not impact the baseline: it is a war crime. Neither should it muddle the primary contention: Russia must release all Ukrainian children regardless of the formalistic grounds it has invented to deport or hold them.

Maria Lvova-Belova attempts to undermine Kyiv’s credibility by accusing the Ukrainian government of producing fake lists of missing children. What she fails to mention is that, under the Geneva Conventions, Russia is obliged to establish and share a card for each child it claimed to have evacuated so that they can be traced and returned. In the Russian presidential commissioner’s opinion, it does not matter how many reports the Ukrainian state files (Ukraine has so far documented 19,546 deported and/or forcibly displaced children), Moscow will dismiss them all as “baseless,” the ombudswoman surmises, effectively refusing to cooperate in good faith despite saying otherwise to the international audiences. 

Manipulation No. 2 – Who Gets to Go Home

While admitting that it had moved Ukrainian children, whose living relatives in Ukraine demand their return, from the occupied territories to Russia, the commissioner does not count the children initially taken to the so-called recreational camps. Russia, thereby, arbitrarily decides whom to include — or exclude — from the “reunification algorithm” that Maria Lvova-Belova’s office has designed on Putin’s orders. Holding children in such camps was lawful for, in Russia’s opinion, the parents had first voluntarily given their permission and simply did not “pick them [the children] up in time.” In fact, families were pressured by either the unliveable conditions of the Russian occupation or the occupation authorities themselves, lied to as to the duration of such forced vacations, and then prevented from even communicating with their children. In any case, their children’s return home was unlawfully denied.

In most cases, Maria Lvova-Belova says, there is no need for the Russian authorities to do anything: Ukrainian families and volunteers can cope on their own. The commissioner only gets involved “when no one else can help.” This, too, is nothing other than another tactic that Moscow has perfected – creating a problem in order to present itself as part of the solution.

Volunteers from Save Ukraine say that, in over a dozen operations, they managed to bring back 446 Ukrainian children deported to Russia. Returned by one of its most rescue missions, a teenage boy recalled several attempts to escape the occupation, during which he was stopped and threatened with imprisonment by the Russian police. Previously, the Russian government went to great lengths to prevent Bohdan Yermohin, deported from Mariupol, from coming back to Ukraine – the experience on which has extensively testified. In the parallel reality of the Moscow briefing, unremorseful Maria Lvova-Belova credited Russia for his repatriation. 

The ombudswoman shamelessly compliments herself on having reunited 70 children and vows to return all deported minors but with one caveat – only if parents have “full rights” to claim them back. What it means and how Ukrainian families can prove that they have full parental rights is solely up to Russia — the very force that has initially separated them – to determine. This is not the only verdict Russia claims to be the sole authority empowered to deliver. 

Manipulation No. 3 – Child’s Best Interests

Everything is being done according to “international standards” and in the name of “a child’s best interests,” Maria Lvova-Belova asserts. With no independent authority – let alone Ukraine – allowed in to verify, however, we are to rely on Russia’s understanding of those standards, as well as how it adheres to those. We are also asked to trust how Russia, an aggressor country, interprets a Ukrainian citizen’s – victim and survivor of its aggression – best interests. 

As an example of what this Orwellian approach means in practice, the case of minors primarily from the de-occupied Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts, who were placed in Russian ‘summer camps’, bears repeating. When speaking about children from the territories that Ukraine liberated in its 2022 counter-offensive, the commissioner resolved that “the situation on the front line” did not allow them “to travel safely home.” 

The commissioner’s Bulletin boasts of providing Ukrainian children with better schooling and healthcare than Ukraine ever could, supplementing this thesis with children’s alleged interviews. This is, however, because the Russian military aggression has systemically targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, with hundreds of attacks on schools and hospitals the recent UN report Children and Armed Conflict attributes to Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups. We must always remember that, in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, Moscow conducted an air strike on a Mariupol drama theatre turned bomb shelter, with CHILDREN spelt out in capital letters in front of it. The presidential commissioner would later claim that it saved dozens of children from the rubble of Mariupol, parade them in front of the cameras, and force them on stage at propaganda rallies.

Hardly anyone in their sane mind would argue that Ukraine, amidst Russia’s genocidal war, is a safe place for children. But the Russian government, the crime’s very perpetrator, is in no position to either make or use this argument on the international stage to justify delaying – or outright denying – the return of Ukrainian children.

In a similar manner, and presumably in accordance with best international practices, Moscow pretends to allow children themselves to decide where and with whom they want to live. In the meantime, these children remain captive in Russia, isolated from the outside world and in the Kremlin’s total control, while we are being asked to trust the captor to act in good faith and relay the hostages’ will. 

Ultimately, Russia wants us to accept that it will be only the Russian court deciding what is in the child’s best interest. Ultimately, Russia wants us to waste our energy arguing those decisions. And to divert attention from why we have arrived here – because Russia invaded Ukraine and deported Ukrainian children. How the Russian court would rule we’ve already gotten a glimpse of. 

Manipulation No. 4 – Ain’t Seen No War

Whenever it suits Moscow’s interests and narratives, the Kremlin prefers to ignore the war as a factor altogether. For instance, the commissioner portrays the issue as – almost classic – transborder family disputes over custody, with the Russian government protecting compatriots who have been wronged by a hostile nation’s authorities. At the press conference, Maria Lvova-Belova recalls the misfortune of a Russian mother who fled her Ukrainian man trying to take away the children; the woman found refuge in Russia, under the protection of a Russian court. 

Whenever there is a strong repatriation case, demanding a child be returned from Russia, Moscow has a script prepared to counter-argue. The children now reside in Russia and acquired Russian citizenship. A simplified procedure enables (a Russia-appointed) legal guardian to apply for it on minors’ behalf. The federal law was explicitly introduced in connection to the invasion and occupation of Ukraine. As such, the practice was condemned by the UN, among others, for violating fundamental child protection principles. It seeks to forcibly alter children’s identity, which is characteristic of genocide. 

In all these instances, there is no talk about war, filtration camps where families are separated, or cities erased to the ground as reasons to leave home. It is, presumably, not a war crime that the Russian state is committing but a family matter when parents or legal guardians on different sides of the border cannot decide where and with whom a child should live. 

Furthermore, the Kremlin insists that the two nations are equally affected by the dispute. To illustrate, Maria Lvova-Belova brings up a plight suffered by a mother of three children, who went on vacation at their grandma’s in Ukraine but could not return. It is an exemplary game of ‘war peek-a-boo’ that Russia invites us to play. On the one hand, it again fails to mention that this family’s travelling options were limited by the Russian troops’ military invasion of a sovereign country and the constant bombardment of its civilian population. On the other hand, it conveniently forgets the Kremlin’s own justification to invade – a ‘genocide’ of Russians allegedly unfolding in the background of that mother’s decision to send kids to Ukraine. Yet, cognitive dissonance has never stood in the way of a good Kremlin storyline.

Manipulation No. 5 – It Isn’t Me, It Is the EU!

Last but not least, the Russian presidential commissioner is concerned about the Ukrainian children who “were separated from their relatives during the special military operation” and “transported to Europe,” in particular by Ukrainian authorities. In the ombudswoman’s words, the parents, now Russian citizens, are faced with obstructionist paperwork and pleading with the Russian government to help return those children from the EU.

It bears reminding that in 2022, such pleas also came from “big-hearted” Russian citizens “lined up to take children” from the newly occupied regions of Ukraine. If one believes the Russo-Soviet historical mythology, Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas, Georgia’s Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region, as well as the Baltic states a century before them, all begged Moscow for assistance and protection. Today, we are also asked to believe that Ukrainian war refugees in the EU are turning to the Russian embassies and summoning the Russian diplomats’ help to reunite with children whom the European bureaucrats have taken away. Maria Lvova-Belova has recorded 15 such appeals and regrets that her office, limited by legal constraints, can only offer consulting and sympathy.

Unlike the previous messages, this one is no longer an information campaign solely against Kyiv and its allies. This is the Kremlin propaganda machine’s first shot at Europe in this new offensive. It builds upon a decades-long tradition of anti-western, anti-liberal-democracy disinformation: from the crusade against alleged abuse of power by Scandinavian social services to the Dima Yakovlev law and speculations of widespread neglect of Russian children in the US. In March 2022, Moscow extended that despicable 2012 legislation that banned international adoptions, coincidentally just as it was preparing the legal groundwork for the adoption of children deported from Ukraine.

The Kremlin will undoubtedly revive this Frankenstein of narratives, and it will also rely on western media to help spread them. Maria Lvova-Belova has urged European journalists to pass on the (Russian) truth and to “separate children from politics.” Unapologetic, she has vowed to “continue our humanitarian mission” in Ukraine and beyond.

Ultimately, this Russian strategy manipulates us into disputing and debunking individual cases vs arguing against what is a clear-cut state policy. It is akin to reflexive control, the Kremlin’s favoured modus operandi, that ordains us to disperse the already scattered resources chasing Russia-trained magic rabbits down the pre-dug holes. This Russian strategy is smart and crafty, and it should worry us all. We must not give in to these information manipulations and be paralysed by gaslighting.