Bohdan Yermokhin. Photo: Vesti
Teenager Bohdan Yermokhin, who was deported from the occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine to Russia last year, will be allowed to return home, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets announced on Friday.
The news was confirmed by Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, who is herself wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in connection with the alleged illegal deportation of over 700,000 Ukrainian children.
An orphan whose legal guardian is his sister who lives in Ukraine, Yermokhin was just one of dozens of children forcibly removed from occupied Mariupol to Moscow by the Russian military and placed in foster families last year.
Yermokhin attempted to return to Ukraine via Belarus in March, but was detained by the security services.
The family’s lawyer had appealed to Lvova-Belova and the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, to allow him to return to Ukraine, while Yermokhin appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday to help gain his freedom.
