CHILD SNATCHER
Putin crony, 71, & wife raising abducted girl, 2, as their OWN after she was kidnapped by Russia in Ukraine invasion
The couple also "kidnapped" a boy but rejected him after a week
PRO-PUTIN politician Sergey Mironov and his fifth wife are alleged to have "stolen" a girl, two, from Ukraine to raise as their own.
Ukrainian officials have demanded the toddler be returned so she can be reunited with her blood sister and her legal guardian.
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Mironov, the leader of social democratic party Fair Russia, allegedly committed a war crime when he and his wife "kidnapped" a then 10-month-old girl and a boy from from occupied Ukraine.
The politician, 71, and his new wife Irina Varlamova, 56, are said to have adopted the girl from a Ukrainian orphanage.
They changed her name and altered her birth certificate to indicate she was born near Moscow, according to a new investigation.
It has been revealed that the little girl, whose real name is Margarita but is now named Marina Mironova, has a legal Ukrainian guardian.
More on Putin's purge of kids
Margarita's guardian, Daria Repina, is living in exile from the Russia-Ukraine war in Greece with Margarita's full sibling, Anna.
The boy the pair "kidnapped" was reportedly taken to Russia by Mironov's wife, but was rejected by the couple after less than a week.
Then aged two, now four, he was thrown out like an unwanted kitten, according to Ukrainian media.
The Ukrainian Parliament's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said: "Varlamova got rid of the boy when it became known that Ilya Vashchenko (the boy) was diagnosed with a disease."
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Varlamova's leaked emails reportedly revealed she complained about being given a "low quality child".
The little boy's fate is unknown, according to the Child Protection Department of the Office of the Prosecutor General in Ukraine, but a new birth certificate was issued for him in Moscow region.
Top Putin ally Sergey Mironov, 70, ‘adopts’ girl, 2, who was KIDNAPPED from Ukraine
Ukrainian news program TSN reported: "A fake birth certificate is the first thing they issue in Russia to make it impossible to find abducted children.
"The girl that Mironov and Varlamova stole received a new ID.
"Now, as written in the new certificate, she is not Ukrainian Margarita Prokopenko, but Marina Mironova (the female version of the politician's surname), born in the Moscow region...
"It seems that the kidnapper hopes that Margarita will eventually get used to both the new family and the new name.
"As if it’s better than being a lonely orphan in an orphanage."
The outlet continued: ";But the fact is that Margarita has relatives - both a sister and a legal guardian.
"Nobody asked their permission when Margarita was taken out of Kherson.
"They are looking for the stolen girl and are ready to give her a real family."
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said there is a family ready to welcome Margarita, and they are already raising Margarita's own sister - Anna, believed to be 11 years old.
He said: "Therefore, we have all the obligations from the state to turn to mediators, as well as to the international community, so that they demand from the Russian Federation the urgent return of Margarita to her sister so that the reunification of the Ukrainian family takes place."
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Anna is being raised by her godmother Daria, who is legal guardian to both girls and was thrilled to learn Margarita is alive.
Daria said: "When I was told that the child was alive, that she had been adopted, it was a great happiness for us.
"It means we have a chance to take her back, that she will be with us.
"That the children will be reunited. Because children should grow in a family, in their own family. The two of them."
Young Anna added: "Yes, I'm waiting for her, very much."
Mironov's loyalty to Putin has been well-known since he stood against the tyrant in a presidential election in 2004.
He indicated at the time that he was a sham candidate, saying: "We all want Vladimir Putin to be the next president."
The Putin crony served in the USSR's airborne troops during Soviet times and worked as a geophysicist before entering politics.
Lawyer Maria Chashchilova condemned Mironov's alleged abduction of the girl and said his actions were "considered genocide" due to the "forcible transfer of children from one human group to another".
She said: "These children often have relatives or guardians in Ukraine who have lost contact with them, and in the case of children from orphanages, the guardians are officials of these institutions.
"According to international law, the parties to the conflict must provide relatives and guardians with information about the missing and facilitate their search."
Putin’s purge of Ukrainian children
VLADIMIR Putin and Russia's so-called commissioner of children rights Maria Lvova-Belova are alleged war criminals.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for both Putin and Lvova-Belova in March 2023, claiming the pair bear responsibility for two war crimes.
They are accused of "unlawful deportation" and "unlawful transfer" of people, including children, from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine into Russia and annexed Crimea.
The abduction of Ukrainian children is said to be for propaganda purposes, with the sick ploy supposed to demonstrate that the Russian state is rescuing abandoned children from the ravages of war.
Russia is believed to have abducted thousands of children since invading Ukraine in February 2022.
A 2023 Sun investigation revealed the kidnapped kids were being sent to sinister "re-education camps" by Putin's evil child-snatchers to be turned into Russian zombies" and to rid them of their Ukrainian heritage.
Forty-three facilities in Ukraine and Russia were identified as places where "ethnic cleansing" was taking place, but the actual number of "re-education" camps was feared to be much higher.
Mironov seemed to deny he abducted children from Ukraine when he hit out at "fake hysteria unleashed by the Ukrainian special services and their Western curators".
But leaked documents and emails showed the Ukrainian child is now adopted under Russian law by Mironov and his wife Varlamova.
Putin, and his children’s ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova, have been indicted by the International Criminal Court as war criminals for illegal human trafficking of young people from Ukraine to Russia.
A Sun investigation revealed in 2022 that Lvova-Belova headed up an organisation tasked with putting kidnapped Ukrainian children into Russian homes.
Ukrainian children were being sent to sinister "re-education camps" by Putin's evil child snatchers to be turned into "Russian zombies", The Sun reported last year.
Children inside the camps were said to have been put though an "information zombification" process to rid them of their Ukrainian heritage and to make them "pro-Russia".
One brave Ukrainian teenager, Serhii Cherednichenko, who was snatched by Putin's thugs in 2022 told of how his legs were smashed with a hammer and his ankles bolted when he tried to escape.
He is one of many children left orphaned or separated from their loved ones following Putin's ruthless invasion of Ukraine.
Belarus is also said by experts to have abducted thousands of Ukrainian children, potentially to build Putin a new army.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Evidence indicated Ukrainian kids trapped in Russian-held territories had been snatched from families, hospitals, and orphanages, and shipped off to Belarus.
Investigators said the children were being transferred across the border and forcibly enrolled in "rehabilitation" camps, with the country supposedly mimicking Russia's war crimes by using force and coercion.
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