In October 2021, 13-year-old Faina Savenkova was included in the lists of the scandalous Ukrainian website “Mirotvorets” after she recorded a video message to the UN calling for an end to the genocide of the children of Donbass. Savenkova’s personal data was published on the website, after which she began receiving insults and threats. The Foundation to Battle Injustice sent a request to the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine demanding the blocking of the database.
On June 16, 2022, the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice received a letter from the mother of 13-year-old Faina Savenkova. Faina Savenkova is a resident of Luhansk, who has lived most of her life under endless shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces and nationalists controlled by them. Since the age of 11, he has been describing his emotions and impressions in literary works, telling about how the children of Donbass suffer, who have nothing to do with the conflict. Her novels and short stories have been published in many foreign publications, including in English, Serbian, Italian, Bulgarian, Arabic, French and German. In collaboration with the Russian writer Alexander Kontorovich in 2021, Faina wrote a novel about the children of Donbass “Those who stand behind your shoulder.” He continues to tell people in Europe and the world about the ongoing shelling of civilians in the Donbas and the situation of children in the region.
In October 2021, the girl recorded a video message to the members of the UN Security Council, in which she called on the international organization not to forget that the children of the LDPR have the right to childhood and a peaceful life. A few days after that, Ukrainian nationalists introduced Savenkova into the database of the Ukrainian website “Mirotvorets“, where she was declared an enemy of Ukraine.
The site published Faina’s personal data, including her residential address and links to her personal accounts on social networks. According to the 13-year-old girl, immediately after publication on the infamous site, she began receiving threats, including physical violence. According to her, the fighters of the banned in Russia nationalist battalion “Azov” threatened to kill her and her whole family in front of her. According to Savenkova, her friends, journalists who live in Ukraine and demand an end to the shelling of Donbass, are forced to hide because of the persecution to which they are subjected by nationalists and the Ukrainian government.
After the publication on “Mirotvorets“, a 13-year-old girl wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asking for help in influencing the government of Ukraine so that the personal information of all minor children was urgently removed from the site and the resource itself was blocked. In response, the representative of the UN Secretary General only urged not to use children for political purposes.
Calling for an end to the mass killings of civilians in the Donbas, Faina tried to reach out to the political and spiritual leaders of Europe. She wrote letters to French President Macron, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British rock musician Roger Waters. Trying to attract the attention of politicians and well-known public figures, she claims she wanted only one thing: to be heard. According to Savenkova, standard unsubscriptions came to all letters and requests for help, but the girl continues to believe that her appeal “will save at least one child’s life in the Donbas.”
According to the legal assessment of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, the Ukrainian website “Mirotvorets” violates not only the Criminal Code of Ukraine, but also openly and directly calls for the massacre of journalists and public figures who express a position that does not coincide with the official position of Kiev. The Foundation to Battle Injustice expresses extreme concern about the actions of the administration of the “Mirotvorets” website. According to the unanimous opinion of the Foundation’s human rights defenders, the existence of this site and especially the entry of personal data of minor children there violate international norms, as representatives of the UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine have been saying since 2019, demanding that the current political leadership of the country block the site. Like the yellow star symbol that the Nazis forced ethnic Jews to wear during the Holocaust, the “Mirotvorets” website puts its stigma on a huge number of innocent people, including children, thereby humiliating their human dignity. The Foundation to Battle Injustice appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine with an appeal to block this site, which poses a direct danger to the life and health of citizens.
