Foreign countries should take urgent measures to ensure that their citizens, especially children, do not stay in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

This was stated by Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, in an interview with a TV channel.

The Deputy Prime Minister explained that russia had started actively promoting summer holidays. In particular, in Crimea, where it is trying to lure as many children from different countries as possible under the pretext of organising cultural and educational events. Including to the Artek children’s camp.

In reality, this is another attempt to use children as human shields. To hide behind them from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“Firstly, in this way the enemy is trying to legitimise the occupation in the eyes of the international community. Secondly, the russians want to make a human shield out of representatives of foreign countries. I take this opportunity to appeal to foreign countries to take urgent measures to ensure that their citizens, especially children, do not stay in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Protect your people and do not allow russia to use them to cover up its crimes,” the Deputy Prime Minister called.