Russian officials said…
Reuters was not able to verify what happened independently
Gee, I wonder why.
The entire article is purely based on Russian sources, including such figures like Yana Lantratova, Russia’s human rights commissioner.
Human rights experts describe Lantratova as “a young careerist shaped entirely by [Russia’s] current political system”,
Lantratova, 37, entered politics in the late 2000s [and] worked as an aide to Vitaly Milonov, an ultra-conservative St. Petersburg lawmaker known for championing Russia’s anti-LGBT legislation … The organization [she headed in the 2000s] drew controversy after accusations that teenagers from a Moscow correctional boarding school had been used in so-called “pedophile hunting” operations …
In late 2025, Lantratova co-authored a bill proposing additional restrictions on Russians convicted in absentia on political charges, including for violating Russia’s wartime censorship laws.
She has called for banning so-called “LGBT propaganda” in video games … and for limiting free education for children of migrants …
Lantratova also (successfully) promoted a ban of the so-called A.U.E. (“Prisoner’s Criminal Unity”) — a subculture later labeled extremist in Russia, but experts say that the A.U.E. doesn’t exist as an organization and that the ban is used to put pressure on political prisoners and others.
According to the lawyer Vadim Prokhorov cited in the linked article, Lantratova used the A.U.E. narrative to build her career.
Lantratova is a product of the Putin regime, [Prokhorov] said, “who in some sense runs ahead” and “contributes to creating moral panic in order to ensure the homogeneity and insulation of Putin’s society and system.”
Ukraine labels Lantratova an “abduction perpetrator” over her alleged involvement in the abduction of Ukrainian children and their forced transfer to Russia,
She is directly related to the fact of forced deportation of Ukrainian children from the TOT of Ukraine to the russian federation, with their subsequent adoption into Russian families.
In addition to Ukraine, Lantratova is subject of several international sanctions, including by the EU and the US.
Writing such a headline and then referring exclusively to sources of such calibers like her does not constitute the best piece of journalism by Reuters imo. Or, to say it clear, this article is rubbish.
[Edit typo.]
Not that the article is credible, but to add the latest news on it:
Kyiv dismisses Russia’s claim that Ukrainian forces bombed a college in occupied Luhansk
Ukraine’s General Staff has dismissed Russian claims that Ukrainian forces struck civilian infrastructure in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as “manipulative" … The General Staff confirmed that on May 22, Ukrainian forces struck a number of Russian targets: an oil refinery, ammunition depots, air defense systems, and command posts, among them “one of the headquarters of the Rubikon unit” near Starobilsk …
Is this Russian misinformation? Perhaps so.
Are innocent people being injured and killed because of Russia’s war? Certainly so.
