* Putin accused of ferrying Ukranian children to Russia.
* Russia insists its moving the children out of harm's way.
* Ukrainians continue to show support for Ukraine children deported to Russia.
Last March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for president Putin after he signed into law a decree that permitted Ukranian children to be conferred unto Russian citizenship, a law that was met with the strongest protest from the Ukrainian foreign ministry which it termed as illegal. However Russia only insisted that it was getting the children out of harm's way terming them as innocents who shouldn't suffer because what it termed as Zelensky's stubbornness and madness.
President Putin signed on 4th January last year a citizenship decree that guaranteed the right to bestow Russian citizenship unto foreigners and stateless people. The Ukranian foreign ministry however saw this as a violation of international laws and children's rights which it termed as Russia's attempt to solve its own demographic crisis because mainly orphaned children and those deprived of parental guardianship were among those that were first short listed for offer and can be fast tracked to Russian citizenship by way of presidential decesion.
The decree can be more evidenced in Russia's policy of assimilation of Ukranian children which involves granting them citizenship so that they are taken as Ukrainians transferred to Russia. The authorities in Ukraine have identified that over 19,000 children have been transferred to Russia with only 387 been returned to Kyiv since the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on 24th February 2022. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin in March holding him responsible for war crimes against children and treating children as " spoils of war" said Karim Khan the ICC prosecutor who said Mr. Putin could stand a trial.
