The orphans aged between 1 and 5 years arrived from three children’s homes in the Donetsk People’s Republic. Head of the region Denis Pushilin requested their evacuation to safe areas of the country. Some of the children are ill, some need lifesaving assistance and rehabilitation. The children were taken from the Chkalovsky Military Airfield to family centres in the Moscow Region. Decisions on their subsequent family placement will be made after medical examinations.
Overall, 234 orphans have arrived in Russia from the Donbass republics during the past week. Some have already been transferred to families in several regions of the country, others were temporarily placed in institutions – these are orphans that previously stayed in temporary accommodation centres in the Rostov and Kursk regions. Seventy-six children from the Lugansk People’s Republic are getting ready to travel to their foster parents in the Volgograd, Leningrad, Novosibirsk and Tyumen regions. These are large family groups up to seven brothers and sisters, and many of them were previously separated because they were staying in different children’s institutions.
The effort to place orphans from the Donbass republics in foster families began last spring at the initiative of Maria Lvova-Belova. Overall, 350 children have already been sent to foster parents in different regions of the Russian Federation. Vladimir Putin supports this work.
