On the 29th of April parliamentary hearings were held by the Lithuanian Seimas about russian war crimes during the years of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The attention was focused on topics about children during the war, migration models, the influence that they have on the future generations and also other views on the genocide nature of this war. 

Ukrainian 17-year-old girl Valeria from Nova Kakhovka shared her experience in the occupation with the Parliament. “We were completely associated as kids of the russian federation”. – she says. Valeria told stories about making deported Ukrainian children sing the anthem of russia and learn their fake history. Moreover, the occupiers were convincing children to move to russia, get the russian passport and enter their universities. 

Co-founder of ICUV Olga Aivazovska also took part in the event, and in her speech, she pointed on the importance of the documentation of russian war crimes for future courts.

‘We don’t have any other option than to fight. Otherwise, our generation and the future ones would be erased from the Earth, Ukrainian children would be without Homeland, the enemy would go further, and there would be no safe place in Europe. This war is an intended genocide, their actions are systematic and they have already calculated the consequences of that. Russia wants to destroy Ukraine as a nation or transform our people into low-quality russians. We lost millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor during 1932-1933 years, in soviet prisons and GULAGs. This unbearable experience will follow us in the future because the culprits and organizers of these uncountable murders haven’t been punished yet’.

At the event was also shown a short film ‘What We Lost’, that was made by the teenagers from the ‘Voices of Children’ foundation. 

The event was hosted by the Head of the Lithuanian Seimas and co-organized by NGOs: Ukreate hub (Lithuania), the Civil network ‘Opora’, the Center for War Crimes Documentation ‘Opora in Poland’, the Charitable Foundation ‘Voices of Children’ and the International Center for Ukrainian Victory.