Seventeen Ukrainian children returned from occupation — among them teens Russians tried to train for war
Seventeen Ukrainian children and teenagers have been successfully returned from occupied territories thanks to the Bring Kids Back UA and Save Ukraine initiatives.
As Censor.NET reports, among those rescued is 17-year-old Mykyta, who was forcibly sent by Russian forces to a so-called "military camp" near Melitopol.
During "training," he was woken up at six in the morning and forced to dig trenches, assemble weapons, and storm buildings, part of the occupiers’ effort to prepare him for war against Ukraine.
Another rescued teenager, 17-year-old Rostyslav, comes from a family serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian occupiers repeatedly took him to a police station, confiscated his phone, and threatened his mother.
Among those returned is 12-year-old Sofia, who was bullied and threatened with death at a Russian school simply because she was Ukrainian. 7-year-old Yaroslav was brought back to government-controlled Kherson region after relatives learned that the occupiers were preparing to "remove" him from his family.
All 17 children are now safe and receiving psychological assistance and volunteer support.
The organizations are also helping them restore their Ukrainian documents, as some were forced to obtain Russian passports.
According to President Zelenskyy, since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, more than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been deported by Russia. Through the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, Ukraine has already returned 1,625 minors.
The forced deportation of children was one of the reasons why the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
