Two American babies evacuated from a Russian orphanage by an NGO

Two American babies born to a surrogate mother who had fled the conflict in Ukraine before giving birth in Saint Petersburg, were evacuated on Tuesday from an orphanage in this Russian metropolis and returned to their American parents, announced Wednesday the NGO responsible for the operation.

The twins, a boy and a girl, were

on Tuesday after the first mission in Russian territory of Project Dynamo, said in a press release the organization, created by former soldiers in 2021 to help the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies during the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Children born to a surrogate mother living in the Donbass

The children were not kidnapped, but evacuated through

in Russia, Peter D'Abrosca, a spokesman for the NGO based in Tampa, Florida, told AFP.

The surrogate mother lived in Donbass, one of the regions of Ukraine most affected by the war.

Due to the fighting, she first reached Crimea before arriving in St. Petersburg where she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in early September, according to the press release.

The babies were sent to an orphanage in the city and the parents, a couple from Texas who requested anonymity, have since sought to retrieve them, without success.

The parents then contacted the NGO and one of its co-founders, Bryan Stern, traveled to Estonia to set up the mission from the town of Narva, on the Russian border.

The statement did not specify how the extraction of the babies was carried out, stating only that

Quoted in the press release, Bryan Stern

the consular services of the United States embassies in Moscow and Tallinn, without further details.

Asked about the help provided by the American embassies, the spokesperson for the NGO was content to reply that they had

The US State Department, questioned by AFP, did not deny.

,” said a spokesman for American diplomacy.

American citizenship is granted automatically to children of American couples born abroad to surrogate mothers or by in-vitro fertilization, provided that at least one of the two parents is biologically related to the baby.