The politician accused of adopting a girl stolen from Ukraine
Who. The leader of the Russian ruling party Just Russia, Sergei Mironov, and his wife Inna Varlamova.
That. The two adopted a one-year-old girl from the occupied Kherson region in 2022 and changed her name.
As. Mironov's wife traveled to the occupied zone and took Margarita Prokopenko from an orphanage, even though she has relatives in Ukraine and Russian law does not allow this type of practice.
The most controversial adoption of the moment is the work of the leader of the Just Russia party, Sergei Mironov. Russian journalists have discovered that he and his new wife adopted a girl stolen from an orphanage in Ukraine during the occupation and changed her identity.
The girl's name is Margarita Prokopenko and she was in an orphanage in Kherson during the occupation of the city by the Russian army.. From there she was taken to Russia and secretly changed her name and citizenship: thus she became the Russian Marina Mironova.
It is the first documented case of adoption of a Ukrainian child by a high-ranking Russian politician.. It is known thanks to an investigative work by the media 'Bashnie Istorii' and the BBC.
The 'robbery' was plotted at the end of August 2022, when the politician's partner – Inna Varlamova – arrived in the Kherson region together with Mironov's right-hand woman in the State Duma.. They returned with a 'loot'. The local occupation authorities granted them power to take 10-month-old Margarita Prokopenko, according to the Ukrainian publication 'Hromadske'.. Before the start of the large-scale invasion he lived in the Kherson orphanage.
Margarita's biological mother was deprived of parental rights and her father died, but she has other relatives. But the adoption of deported Ukrainian children in Russia is a crime from the point of view of international law.
During Varlamova's visit to take a baby girl, Margarita was being treated for bronchitis at the Kherson Regional Children's Hospital.. The day after discharge, Margarita was taken from the orphanage. Along with her, they 'imported' another child, Ilya. Officially, both were taken to Moscow for “examination, determination of further treatment and rehabilitation.”. It was a bold move: there were just over two months left before the Ukrainian army liberated the city.. The only thing known about Ilya is that in September he was in the Moscow region with a new birth certificate.. Legally, children have been “born again”. And all because prominent Russian citizens needed it.
Journalists have even found the application that the Ministry of Social Development of the Moscow Region sent to the Kherson orphanage in early September 2022. The names of Mironov and his wife appear.
Mironov called the information “a falsification of the Ukrainian special services and their Western guardians” to discredit the patriots. He did not give any explanation about the evidence of the alleged robbery.. He simply stated that “the truth will continue to win. And Russia will achieve total victory.”
Mironov and Varlamova got married in 2022. For him this marriage was his fifth; for her, the fourth.
Mironov has made sure that no one beats him when it comes to patriotism. He supported the invasion of Ukraine from the first moment, speaking publicly in support of the businessman Evgeny Prigozhin (killed after his mutiny) and even taking photographs with a mallet, one of Wagner's emblems and at the same time an instrument used in some of his executions. He demanded that the governor of St. Petersburg give military honors to Wagner's fallen soldiers. The mercenaries were his 'creatures', but now the war has given him a stolen girl.