US Embassy accuses Russia of kidnapping children amid reports it's deporting thousands of Ukrainians by force

• The US Embassy in Kyiv accused Russia of kidnapping Ukrainians and forcibly sending them to Russia.
• Citing Ukraine's foreign ministry, the embassy said Russian forces illegally removed 2,389 children.

The US Embassy accused Russia of kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children as local officials alleged that Russian troops forcibly deported civilians while bombarding eastern cities.

"According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Russian forces have illegally removed 2,389 Ukrainian children from Donetsk and Luhanks oblasts to Russia," the US Embassy in Kyiv tweeted on Tuesday.

"This is not assistance. It is kidnapping," they said.

On Monday, Ukraine accused Russia of forcing Ukrainians in the besieged city of Mariupol into Russia, Insider previously reported.

Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun said on Sunday that those trapped in Mariupol were taken across the border against their will.

"They're taking Ukrainian citizens, sending them through what are called filtration camps, and then relocating them to distant parts of Russia to work for free," Sovsun told Times Radio. "This is the logic of Nazi Germany."

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine's human-rights spokesperson, also alleged that Ukrainians were being "sent by rail to various economically depressed cities in Russia."

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko also compared the removals to the work of the Nazis during World War II.

"What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II when the Nazis forcibly captured people," he told CNN on Saturday.

Reports of the forced removals have not been independently verified. The Russian state news agency TASS reported that millions were asking to be moved into Russia.