Maria Lvova-Belova

The Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova is a potent symbol of the kind of society Vladimir Putin wants Russia to be – one shaped by conservative values, Orthodox Christianity and imperial might.

14/02/2023 Portraying herself as a Russian ‘everywoman’ who puts family and God first, Lvova-Belova is believed by many to be in fact an ambitious Kremlin insider serving above all, the interests of the state.

Impeccably dressed, blonde hair framing a neat, wholesome face, she has led the forced evacuation of hundreds, if not thousands, of Ukrainian children from east Ukraine to Russia. Named Children’s Commissioner in 2021 aged just 37, Lvova-Belova embraced the role with zeal, and has in the past year proved her total loyalty to President Putin in his war on Ukraine.

In July 2022 she was placed on the EU sanctions list for leading the ‘illegal transportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and their adoption by Russian families,’ actions which ‘violate the rights of Ukrainian children and infringe Ukrainian law,’ according to the EU. Lvova-Belova is also sanctioned by the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Switzerland.

Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights.

Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights.

But Russian state TV describes Lvova-Belova as the ‘saviour’ of Ukrainian children, an angle she promotes assiduously on social media. Posting positive videos all the way, she is filmed travelling by train with Ukrainian orphans to meet their new adoptive families in cities as far afield as Novosibirsk in Siberia.

Children from the Donbas are taken to Nizhny Novgorod region in September 2022. Photo: Kremlin press office

Lvova-Belova meets the head of the LPR in August 2022.

Lvova-Belova brings 125 children from the DPR to Moscow on a Ministrz of Defence plane in September 2022. Photo from her Telegram channel.

Chatting briskly, clutching an oversized soft toy and sometimes laying a protective hand on a bewildered child’s shoulder, former music teacher Lvova-Belova employs her best classroom manner for the cameras.

Lvova-Belova talks to the press upon arriving in Moscow on a Russian Air Force plane with children from the Donbas. 16 September 2022. Photo by the press service of the Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights

Lvova-Belova talks to the press upon arriving in Moscow on a Russian Air Force plane with children from the Donbas. 16 September 2022. Photo by the press service of the Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights

In her official social media accounts and other public relations events she comes across as a simple, loving mother-figure, one that contrasts with her savvy political maneuvers and in particular the evacuation of hundreds of children from Ukraine.

Born in 1984 into a big family living in the provincial city of Penza, Lvova-Belova puts her ordinary background to political use, making her a relatable figure for the Russian audience. Mining her own experience as a mother helps add a layer of authority to her public and political initiatives with children.

Lvova-Belova and her husband Pavel Kogelman have five biological and four adopted children, while she has guardianship for a further 13 children with disabilities, housed in specialist accommodation by her charity foundation.

Lvova-Belova and her husband Pavel Kogelman.

Lvova-Belova and her husband Pavel Kogelman.

Being a mum isn’t easy Lvova-Belova confides in an interview on the right-wing, Russian Orthodox channel Tsargrad TV, all we can really do is love our children, she says disarmingly.

The gushing presenter presses her for tips on balancing family life with such a ‘meteoric career’ in politics.

Husband Pavel comes first and then the children insists Lvova-Belova, as photos of the family gathered around a meal table, complete with artful vase of fresh flowers, flash up on screen.

She recounts how the couple met in their hometown of Penza: young IT specialist Kogelman happened to walk into a church where Lvova-Belova sang in the choir, then returned every week until he plucked up courage to ask her out.

Their family grew and as her career took off, first with a charity fund for housing disabled orphans in 2008 and then politics, Kogelman took a back seat, becoming ordained as an Orthodox priest in 2019.

But this too, played to her political advantage. Lvova-Belova was elected senator for Penza to Russia’s executive assembly in 2020 and appointed Children’s Commissioner a year later, cementing her reputation as a rising star of the ruling United Russia party and her husband’s place as part of her conservative values narrative.

In June 2022 and by then based between Moscow and Krasnodar – a region of southern Russia which borders east Ukraine – Lvova-Belova and Kogelman fostered another child, this time a 15-year-old boy from Mariupol, named in Russian news reports as Filip.

Lvova-Belova and her adopted son from Mariupol, Filip, as shown in her Telegram account.

Lvova-Belova and her adopted son from Mariupol, Filip, as shown in her Telegram account.

She recounts his story on TV; Filip’s mother died when he was 11, and Russian forces entering Mariupol found him in a basement, abandoned by foster parents who fled the city, she recounts in an emotional Telegram post.

Lvova-Belova remembers meeting him for the first time; “I just knew he was for me, I felt he was so close to me, he was my child,” she declares with perfectly-judged emotion. She has acknowledged that Filip, like other Ukrainian children brought into Russia, had trouble adjusting to their new reality.

“When we brought them to the territory of the Moscow region so that they could recover a little, they began to speak negatively about the president, said all sorts of nasty things, sang the anthem of Ukraine. But a little time has passed. These children ended up in foster families in the Moscow region. One of the boys got into my family”, she said. “And I can see before my eyes how this integration began to take place. (…) And we started asking them: since Russia is so bad, you will have the opportunity to return. None of the children wanted to return”.

Dismissing accusations of the forced adoption and assimilation of children evacuated from east Ukraine to Russia, Lvova-Belova insists Moscow simply has ‘guardianship’ over these vulnerable children, some of whom she claims had been in state institutions since 2014. The terms of guardianship “in no way limits their rights to communicate with relatives in Ukraine, the child can return to his homeland if he wants,” Lvova-Belova told Russian media.

Moscow always intended to return them to the Russian – occupied territories of east Ukraine, annexed illegally in September 2022, but ongoing fighting means it’s too dangerous, she claims.

A version of events that is disputed by international NGOs and legal experts. Bill Van Esveld, from Human Rights Watch, says that the few children who manage to come back to Ukraine tell a different story. "Those kids have been told 'your parents abandoned you; your country abandoned you'" , he says. "This is not only false, not only a war crime, but also these kids have families, most of them. And even if they are orphans, they don't belong in Russia. They belong in communities and families in Ukraine."

Lvova-Belova cries as "children evacuated to Russia" meet their new foster families and reunited with siblings who were living in other institutions in the Donbas. Video: Lvova-Belova Telegram channel.

Meanwhile she says with pride that her ‘new son’ Filip, who obtained his Russian passport last September,is getting used to life in the family and has started studying at law college in Moscow.

However, he’s had some trouble passing history tests, notes Lvova-Belova, because she says the Russian history he was taught in Ukrainian school was all wrong.

She plans to set up courses to help Ukrainian children ‘integrate’ into their new lives in Russia, a further step towards assimilation described by the US State Department as enforced ‘patriotic education.’

Filip receiving his Russian passport in September 2022. “Philip was waiting for this day in our family more than anyone else. Today he received a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation and does not let go of it! He admitted that he is overwhelmed with emotions. For my adopted son from Mariupol, this event is proof that he is now “his own”. In our country, in society, among peers.” (Lvova-Belova Telegram)

Filip receiving his Russian passport in September 2022. “Philip was waiting for this day in our family more than anyone else. Today he received a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation and does not let go of it! He admitted that he is overwhelmed with emotions. For my adopted son from Mariupol, this event is proof that he is now “his own”. In our country, in society, among peers.” (Lvova-Belova Telegram)

Since the invasion almost 400 children from occupied Donbas have been placed into foster care with Russian families across the country, according to various reports.

The children’s care service of Krasnodar on August 23 wrote on its website that ‘more than 1,000 kids from Mariupol found new families’ in Russia, according to a report by Meduza and other Russia independent news outlets.

Krasnodar authorities took down the webpage soon afterwards, alleging the text was posted during a cyberattack. Overall it is unclear how many more Ukrainian children are currently in care in Russia, though one report refers to thousands still waiting to be placed in homes.