Brussels, Feb 15 (FN Bureau) The European Union intends to impose sanctions against Secretary-General of the Belarus Red Cross Dmitry Shevtsov and several other Belarusian citizens for their alleged role in transferring children from Donbas to Belarus, the EUobserver news outlet reported on Wednesday, citing a draft of the sanctions document. The new package of sanctions will also target a municipal chief in the Vitebsk region, Dmitry Demidov, paralympic athlete and charity foundation head Alexey Talai, as well as the director of the Dolphins non-governmental organisation for disabled children, Olga Volkova, the report said. Talai’s and Volkova’s organisations could also be sanctioned, EUobserver reported.Inna Varlamova, the wife of Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who allegedly adopted a child from an orphanage in the Kherson region, was also proposed for blacklisting.
The package will include a total of 193 individuals and entities, most of them Russia-based, but some also being from China, India, Turkey, and North Korea, EUobserver said.In December 2023, the Belarus Red Cross Society was suspended from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) for its failure to comply with the request to remove Shevtsov from his position for allegedly controversial statements on nuclear weapons and visits to the regions that broke away from Ukraine and became part of Russia. In July 2023, the European Parliament called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, citing a similar warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The European Parliament said Belarus was allegedly responsible for “damage caused to and crimes committed in Ukraine, including through the regime’s role in the illegal transfers of children.” The Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2022, on the grounds of alleged “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia.