US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced the new sanctions as she chaired a Security Council session that coincided with Ukrainian Independence Day, AFP reported.
“Russia’s campaign of cruelty continues to this day,” she said. “The United States will not stand by as Russia carries out these war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The US sanctions target 11 Russian individuals, including several “children’s rights” regional commissioners, blocking any US assets and making US transactions with them a crime.
The US also sanctions the Artek “summer camp” in Russian-occupied Crimea and an alleged re-education camp for children in Russia’s Chechnya.
The International Criminal Court pointed to the transfer of children when it issued an arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“You will hear Russian officials say that their transfers of children are part of ‘humanitarian evacuations.’ But this is a gross perversion of reality, and a futile attempt to justify the unjustifiable,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The abduction and deportation of children is one of the five prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention of 1948, and one of the six grave violations against children during armed conflict.
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