Lithuania aims to provide rehabilitation and psychiatric support for Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia and subsequently returned home.
This was reported by LRT, citing the advisor to the Lithuanian Minister of Health, Skirmantas Krumkaitis.
“We are in the technical phase, determining when the children will be able to travel to Lithuania,” Krumkaitis noted.
The assistance for Ukrainian children is planned to commence following a request from Kyiv for support.
According to the Lithuanian Ministry of Health, the children will receive treatment at rehabilitation facilities, and specialists will provide psychiatric services to alleviate the effects of forced deportation to Russia.
“Children must meet specific rehabilitation criteria. (...) This could be either physical rehabilitation or respiratory rehabilitation. The main criterion is the presence of medical indications, and most importantly, the existence of specific groups of children in Ukraine who were abducted and taken to Russia,” Krumkaitis emphasized.
Minors will arrive in Lithuania with their parents, guardians, or other accompanying persons. Their accommodation and meals will also be financed.
Krumkaitis stated that the plan is to accept as many children as the medical facilities can accommodate.
“Preliminarily, we can say that we will be accepting about 15-20 children per month across all healthcare institutions in Lithuania,” he informed.
It is planned to host approximately 150 children annually. To provide necessary services for this number of children alongside their companions, around €400,000 will be required each year.
In 2025, costs for the aforementioned services (up to €100,000) are planned to be covered by borrowed funds, and in 2026 - from EU funds or other financing sources.
President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the return of children abducted by Russia is “the most sensitive and problematic issue.”
An international coalition for the return of Ukrainian children urged Russia to return the abducted children without delay or conditions. The joint statement was signed by 38 countries, the Council of Europe, and the European Union.
During talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, then-President Donald Trump handed him a letter from First Lady Melania Trump regarding the abducted Ukrainian children.
Since the onset of the full-scale invasion, the Russian Federation has deported or forcibly relocated over 19,500 children.
