Ukraine managed to bring home a 12-year-old boy. After about 18 months of living in the occupation, the invaders took the child to Russia.
One more child was brought home
According to the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, the child was in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine from the first days of the full-scale war and later — in the Russian Federation.
On the eve of the Russian invasion, the boy came to his father in the Luhansk region for three days, but because of the invasion of the Russian Federation, he was under occupation for about 18 months. Then, the child spent another four months on the territory of the Russian Federation. The child even had to study in a Russian school.
The child's mother could not pick up the boy alone because she was serving as an AFU soldier. That's why the woman asked for help to get her son back.
The ombudsman's office worked out a way back, taking care of logistics, security and other areas. It was not easy, but the result was worth it: the boy is at home! , Lubinets said.
What is known about the abduction of Ukrainian children
For Children's Day in 2023, the Online.UA team presented the documentary project "Abducted Childhood", which tells the story of Ukrainian children forcibly deported and abducted to Russia.
In the "Abducted Childhood" film, children and their parents openly share their own stories: some of them were in captivity, some were forcibly taken to a "rehabilitation camp", and some were separated from their parents during the so-called filtering measures.
It is essential to understand that during more than a year and a half of full-scale war, Ukraine was able to return less than 400 children. At the same time, Russia claims to have "evacuated" 744,000 Ukrainian children.
Since diplomacy with the aggressor country does not work, Russia continues to remove children from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine illegally.
However, this is not an evacuation, as the Russians claim, but a mass kidnapping of minor citizens of Ukraine.
The project documents children's testimonies about war crimes committed by the Russian Federation against the Ukrainian people.
