First Girl Melania Trump says Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to her letter of concern in regards to the little one victims of the Russia-Ukraine struggle.
She made the announcement on Friday, saying that after an “open channel of communication” with Putin, Ukranian kids displaced within the struggle had been reunited with households.
The First Girl’s “peace letter” was hand delivered to Putin throughout his Alaska go to in August.
President Donald Trump shared elements of the letter on social media. In it, the primary woman pleads with Putin to guard kids, writing that doing so “will do greater than serve Russia alone” and “will serve humanity itself”.
“Eight kids have been rejoined with their households throughout the previous 24 hours,” Mrs Trump mentioned, flanked by American flags behind a podium within the White Home.
“Every little one has lived in turmoil due to the struggle in Ukraine.”
Of the eight kids, the First Girl mentioned three separated from their households had been displaced to Russia due to front-line combating.
One other younger woman displaced by the battle has now been returned from Ukraine to Russia, Mrs Trump says.
The kids’s reunification with their households was facilitated by each Ukraine and Russia, the First Girl mentioned, including that she was given an in depth report with images and the “identities and circumstances” of every little one.
The US authorities “confirmed the info”, she mentioned.
Mrs Trump mentioned she has “discovered so much about this matter” since her letter was first handed to Putin. She mentioned he responded in writing.
In her letter, the First Girl wrote: “Each little one shares the identical quiet goals of their coronary heart… They dream of affection, chance, and security from hazard.”
The announcement marks a constructive improvement in her advocacy for kids from the White Home, which started throughout President Trump’s first time period.
She launched the BE BEST initiative in January 2021, which the White Home describes as an consciousness marketing campaign targeted across the well-being of youngsters globally.
Earlier this yr, the First Girl led an initiative for Congress to cross a invoice banning revenge porn referred to as the Take It Down Act. After the invoice was signed, she mentioned it was “a robust assertion that we stand united in defending the dignity, privateness, and security of our kids”.
In accordance with the Ukrainian authorities, at the least 19,500 Ukrainian kids have been deported and forcibly displaced from their properties to Russia and Russian-occupied territories since February 2022.
Simply 1,605 have come house thus far, in accordance with the federal government’s Youngsters of Warfare database, exterior.
The Worldwide Felony Court docket issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Youngsters’s Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, in 2023 for the alleged illegal deportation of youngsters.
Russia denies the accusation and says it has protected kids by transferring them from a struggle zone for his or her security.
