Oleksandra Matviichuk: Canada needs to help recover Ukraine’s ‘stolen children’
This week, Canadians celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-Day – the day when Canada’s armed forces joined with those of the United Kingdom, the United States and other allies to start the liberation of Western Europe from fascist occupation. Today, my home country of Ukraine is partly under occupation by a new European fascist regime — that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine is one of the most devastating wars — in human and physical destruction — since the Second World War.
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For 10 years, as a human rights lawyer, I have been documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine — for this war did not begin in 2022. It started with the invasion of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014.
Our team, the Center for Civil Liberties, united with dozens of organizations from across Ukraine to build a national network of documenters. Since the full-scale invasion in 2022 alone, we have recorded more than 72,000 war crimes.