Moscow Mechanism Report (2023)

II. Introduction and Mandate

On 30 March 2023, the delegations of 45 OSCE participating States (Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America), after the consultation with Ukraine, invoked the Moscow Mechanism under paragraph 8 of the Moscow Document. They requested that ODIHR enquire with Ukraine whether it would invite a mission of experts to “address the Deportation of Children amidst Human Rights Violations and Humanitarian Impacts of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”. Following on this inquiry, Ukraine established, on 4 April 2023, a mission composed of three experts selected from the list of experts available under the Moscow Mechanism. The appointed experts were Prof. Veronika Bílková (Czech Republic), Dr. Cecilie Hellestveit (Norway) and Dr. Elīna Šteinerte (Latvia).

The mandate of the Mission was to “to build upon previous findings and establish the facts and circumstances surrounding possible contraventions of relevant OSCE commitments, violations and abuses of human rights, and violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well as possible cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity, associated with or resulting from the forcible transfer of children within parts of Ukraine’s territory temporarily controlled or occupied by Russia and/or their deportation to the Russian Federation; and to collect, consolidate, and analyze this information with a view to offer recommendations, as well as provide the information to relevant accountability mechanisms, as well as national, regional, or international courts or tribunals that have, or may in future have, jurisdiction”.

By virtue of paragraph 7 of the Moscow Document, the Mission of experts had three weeks to complete the mandate. It therefore delivered its report on 25 April 2023. During the drafting of the report, the Mission was supported administratively and logistically by ODIHR. The experts wish to underline that, in line with the rules of the Moscow Mechanism, ODIHR did not in any way interfere with the substantive work of the Mission, which operated in a fully independent, neutral, and impartial way.

The Mission built on the reports produced by the previous two Missions of experts established under the Moscow Mechanism in March and May 2022. 1 These reports provide a comprehensive overview of possible contraventions of OSCE commitments, and violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as possible cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity, that occurred during the first four months of the full-fledged armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine (24 February 2022 – 25 June 2023). While the First Report only addressed the deportations of civilians in general, not focusing specifically on children (Section IV.E.5.F and Section V.D.8), the Second Report already noted that more than 210,000 children, both accompanied and unaccompanied, might have been relocated by Russia during the conflict according to the Ukrainian sources, though this figure and the whereabouts of these children could not be verified (Section IV.A.5.F).

The Report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (IICIU),2 published on 15 March 2023, contains an even more detailed section of forced transfers and deportations of children (section IV.D). The Commission found evidence suggesting that a large number of children had been deported from Ukraine to the Russian Federation and that legal and policy measures had been taken by Russia to grant Russian citizenship to some of these children and to facilitate their placement in foster families. The Commission concluded that “the situations /…/ concerning the transfer and deportation of children, within Ukraine and to the Russian Federation respectively, violate international humanitarian law, and amount to a war crime”.3 On 28 March 2023, the UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the Commission for a further period of one year, 4 emphasising inter alia “the importance of investigating and documenting violations and abuses of the rights of the child and violations of international humanitarian law, including forcible transfers and deportation, by relevant mechanisms, including the Commission of Inquiry”. 5

On 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it had issued warrants of arrest for the president of the Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir V. Putin, and the Commissioner for Children Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, Ms. Maria A. Lvova-Belova. 6 Both are allegedly responsible for two war crimes, namely the unlawful deportation of population (children) under Articles 8(2)(a)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the ICC and the unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation under Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Statute. At the time of the submission of this report, no further details on the arrest warrant were available and no further formal steps seem to have been taken by the ICC in the investigation of the situation in Ukraine.