MOSCOW: A leading Russian supporter of President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied a report that he adopted a child forcibly taken from a Ukrainian orphanage.
Citing Russian and Ukrainian documents, the BBC reported that Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov had adopted a child, now two years old, who was taken from an orphanage in the Ukrainian city of Kherson last year.
Russia has been accused of forcibly deporting thousands of Ukrainian children from schools, hospitals and orphanages in parts of the country controlled by its forces.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and his children’s commissioner for “the war crime of unlawful deportation... and transfer” of children from Ukraine to Russia.
According to the BBC, Mironov was “named on the adoption record of a two-year-old girl who was taken in 2022 by a woman he is now married to.”
Mironov called the investigation a “hysteric fake unleashed by Ukrainian special services and their Western curators.”
Without commenting on specific details of the BBC report, he said it was an “information attack” designed to “discredit” him.
Mironov, 70, leads a pro-Kremlin opposition party in Russia’s parliament.
He previously spent a decade as head of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament — a key post marshalling the Kremlin’s legislative agenda.
He is a staunch supporter of the military campaign against Ukraine, and has been awarded honors by Putin.
In his response, Mironov said Russia would achieve “complete victory” against Ukraine.
The BBC reported the child he allegedly adopted, whose original name is Margarita, had her identity changed after being taken to Russia.
She was one of 48 children who went missing from the Kherson Region Children’s Home after Russian forces seized the southern city.
Just one has since been returned, the office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said Thursday.
It added that a criminal investigation was ongoing into the “illegal deportation of 48 children” from a Kherson orphanage and that three suspects had been identified.
They are an unnamed member of Russia’s parliament, the Russian-installed head of the regional health ministry and the acting chief physician of the orphanage.
Ukraine regained control of Kherson last November.
Kyiv says it has identified around 20,000 children that were taken to Russia after its forces launched a full-scale military campaign in February 2022.
Fewer than 400 have been returned.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak alluded to the case in a social media post Thursday.
“The adoption of a Ukrainian child by a Russian official slams the narrative of the ‘temporary evacuation’ of Ukrainian children for alleged ‘safety’ reasons,” he said.
“The unmistakable intention to permanently remove Ukrainian children from their homeland leaves no room for doubt. It is a war crime,” he added.
Moscow has not denied moving thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but claims it did so for their own protection.
Russian politician denies adopting Ukrainian infant
https://arab.news/c5ev3
Russian politician denies adopting Ukrainian infant
- The BBC reported that Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov had adopted a child, now two years old
- Mironov was “named on the adoption record of a two-year-old girl who was taken in 2022 by a woman he is now married to”
Shooter kills 9 at Canadian school and residence
- The shooter was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound
- A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries
TORONTO: A shooter killed nine people and wounded dozens more at a secondary school and a residence in a remote part of western Canada on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
The attack occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” by the “horrific acts of violence” and announced he was suspending plans to travel to the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, where he had been set to hold talks with allies on transatlantic defense readiness.
Police said an alert was issued about an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon.
As police searched the school, they found six people shot dead. A seventh person with a gunshot wound died en route to hospital.
Separately, police found two more bodies at a residence in the town.
The residence is “believed to be connected to the incident,” police said.
At the school, “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self?inflicted injury,” police said.
Police have not yet released any information about the age of the shooter or the victims.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and the profound impact this tragedy has had on families, students, staff, and our entire town,” the municipality of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement.
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things... just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
‘Heartbreak’
While mass shootings are extremely rare in Canada, last April, a vehicle attack that targeted a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver killed 11 people.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the latest violence “unimaginable.”
Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said it was “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee, whose athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, said Wednesday it was “heartbroken by the news of the horrific school shooting.”
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Tumbler Ridge, a quiet town with roughly 2,400 residents, is more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Vancouver, British Columbia’s largest city.
“There are no words sufficient for the heartbreak our community is experiencing tonight,” the municipality said.
