Ukraine returns four more children from occupied part of Kherson region
Photo: Ukraine has returned four more children from the occupied part of Kherson region (Getty Images)
Four more children have been successfully returned from the territory of the Kherson region temporarily occupied by Russian forces. One boy was even forcibly taken to a military enlistment office by the Russians, where his information was entered into the database as a Russian conscript, according to the Telegram channel of Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration.
"Four more children have been successfully rescued from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region. There are three boys and one girl. The youngest child is 10 years old, and the oldest is 17," Prokudin reported.
According to him, among those rescued is a boy whom the Russians forcibly took to a military enlistment office, entered his information into the database as a Russian conscript, and even assigned him a military specialty.
The boy and the other evacuated children are now in Ukrainian-controlled territory. They are safe and are receiving the necessary medical and psychological assistance.
The rescue mission was carried out as part of the President of Ukraine's initiative, Bring Kids Back UA, and with the support of the Save Ukraine NGO.
As the head of the regional administration noted, since the beginning of this year, a total of 39 children have already been returned from the temporarily Russian-occupied territory of the Kherson region.
Deportation of Ukrainian children
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been carrying out the mass deportation of Ukrainian children. They are being taken to Belarus, Russia, and the occupied Crimean peninsula.
According to Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, since the start of the full-scale war, Russia has deported over 19,500 children from Ukraine. More than one thousand young Ukrainians have been successfully returned home.
The deportation of Ukrainian children was the reason the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
