Another group of children and teenagers returns to Ukraine from occupation
Photo: Ukraine has brought back a large group of children from occupation (Getty Images)
Another group of children and teenagers has been rescued from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, according to the Bring Kids Back UA initiative and Save Ukraine on Facebook.
Among those rescued were:
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Maksym, 17, who has a congenital hearing impairment. His family holds a pro-Ukrainian position, which led Russian troops to repeatedly search their home. Throughout the occupation, he secretly continued studying online at a Ukrainian school.
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Artem, 23, and Danylo, 19. Before the occupation, Artem served in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, placing the family under constant scrutiny by the occupiers. FSB officers repeatedly searched their home, attempted to recruit the brothers, and threatened their mother with deportation.
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Bohdan, 18, who was forcibly sent by Russian occupiers to a psychiatric commission and registered for military service in the Russian army. After receiving a draft notice, he realized there was no time to delay and decided to flee.
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Dmytro, 17, who was taken from his hometown with his family under the pretext of an "evacuation." In reality, they were transported to a tent camp in Russia’s Belgorod region and later to a dormitory in the Oryol region. There, occupiers issued him falsified documents in an attempt to sever his ties with Ukraine.
Deportation of Ukrainian children
According to Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, more than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been deported.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine has managed to bring back more than 1,600 children from Russia through the Bring Kids Back UA initiative.
The deportation of Ukrainian children was a key reason why the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.
