Thank you so much, Chair.
Thank you so much, Prosecutor General Kostin, for being here.
This is a very difficult conversation. We have seen a pattern of war crimes committed by Russia, with the targeting of Ukrainian cultural symbols and mass sexual violence in the battlefield areas like Kharkiv and Kherson. We've seen torture. We've seen the murder of civilians. However, this question of forcibly taking the children moves us into a whole other realm, because it is about the destroying of families and the destroying of identity.
One of the legal definitions of genocide is the forceful taking of children. Just to have it on the record here for the Canadian people, you've identified 19,000 forced deportations. You've identified children who were being put up for adoption illegally. You've stated that teenagers were being forced into military training.
How systematic is this? What does this pattern tell us about Russia's attempt to destroy Ukrainian identity and Ukrainian families?