UNICEF apologizes to Lugansk child on Ukrainian blacklist for postponing meeting - FM

UNICEF representatives apologized to the 13-year-old writer from Lugansk Faina Savenkova, blacklisted by the notorious Ukrainian website Mirotvorets (Peacekeeper), for postponing a meeting with her, the Lugansk People's Republic Foreign Ministry said.

A UNICEF official was to have met with Savenkova on Tuesday to look into the situation where her personal information had been entered into the Mirotvorets database.

“The meeting with the young Lugansk-based writer Faina Savenkova requested by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on November 16 has not taken place,” the Ministry said. “On Tuesday morning, UNICEF sent an official notice saying that the specialist who has “a mandate” to meet with the girl is not coming due to force majeure.”

The UNICEF personnel who did arrive are only authorized to discuss the implementation of humanitarian programs, it said.

“Eventually, the UNICEF representatives agreed to briefly meet with Faina. They apologized to her offering assurances that a full meeting would certainly take place when the UNICEF sends its representative with a proper mandate to Lugansk. The date of the meeting has not been set yet,” an LPR diplomat said.

The diplomat added that the UNICEF staff had met with Savenkova after an hour of negotiations, during which “LPR Foreign Minister Vladislav Deinego and LPR representative in the Contact Group humanitarian subgroup Olga Kobtseva managed to convince them that even despite a lack of the opportunity to have a full-fledged meeting now, UNICEF should at least explain the cause behind the current situation.”

Earlier, Savenkova published an open letter to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and UNICEF in which she said that “Mirotvorets” published her personal data for her views and works. The girl urged the international organization to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to solve this issue and protect the rights of children whose personal data had been posted on that website, too.

The Russian Mission to the United Nations forwarded Savenkova’s letter to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Lugansk playwright Faina Savenkova is the youngest member of the LPR Writers Union. She has made significant achievements despite her young age. In 2019, her play “The Hedgehog of Hope” was included in the short list of the International Contest of Modern Russian Drama and received a special jury prize at the Russian Drama Competition for young audiences. In 2020, she was put on the short list of the Eurasia 2020 international contest of the Nikolay Kolyada contests. Her stories and plays were published in Russia and translated into the Czech, Bulgarian, Serbian, French and Italian languages. *i*s