Another group of children has been returned to territory controlled by Ukraine
Another rescue operation took place on the temporarily occupied left bank of the Kherson region. Another group of children was returned to the territory controlled by Ukraine.
This was reported by Oleksandr Prokudin, according to Censor.NET.
These are boys and girls aged 11 to 17.
Among those rescued was an 11-year-old boy who, along with his father, was being held at a police station by Russian security forces for refusing to apply for Russian documents and send his child to an occupation school.
The family of the 16-year-old and her 13-year-old sisters were also threatened with the loss of parental rights and fined for refusing to attend a Russian school. Despite everything, the girls secretly continued to study online at a Ukrainian school.
The return took place as part of the Ukrainian President's Bring Kids Back UA initiative and with the assistance of the Save Ukraine charity organization.
Currently, the children are staying at Hope and Recovery centers, where they receive psychological support, assistance with documents, housing, and care.
Bring Kids Back UA initiative: what is known
Bring Kids Back UA is a strategic plan initiated by the President of Ukraine to return Ukrainian children who were illegally deported or forcibly displaced to Russia or who were in temporarily occupied territories.
The goal is to identify, locate, and safely repatriate children in order to reunite them with their families and provide them with a safe environment.
In addition to repatriation, the plan includes reintegration (psychological assistance, education, restoration of documents), support for families who take in children, as well as legal and international pressure on the Russian Federation to document cases of abduction and persecution.
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Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the initiative has recorded more than 19,546 cases of illegal deportation or displacement of Ukrainian children.
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As of now, more than 1,859 children have been returned to Ukraine.
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For example, in 2024, 449 children were returned.
