According to Kiev, more than 16,000 Ukrainian children were brought to Russia.
This is the story of some who made it home.
Russia is said to have deported thousands of children from the occupied territories during the Ukraine conflict.
Some children made it back home to Ukraine.
This article is available in German for the first time – it was first published in
Foreign Policy
magazine on April 17, 2023 .
KIEV - When Svitlana Markina's daughters asked to go to a summer camp in Russian-occupied Crimea last October, she thought it was their only chance to recover from the brutal and exhausting war in Ukraine.
The teachers said it was an opportunity for the girls - Yana, 15, and Yeva, 12 - to recover and get away from Kherson, which has come under fire as part of Ukraine's counter-offensive in the south of the country;
the city had been under Russian occupation since February's full-scale invasion.
"Why do you want to keep your children here?
Why do you want to keep them away from the sea and fresh air?” stressed the members of the Russian administration.
“I am a single mother.
I work full-time in a factory and even before the war it was very difficult for us,” says Markina, 36, who is originally from Crimea but has not been able to travel there since Russia illegally annexed her in 2014.
The girls had never left Kherson before.
Russia brings dozens of children on buses from Ukraine
On October 7, Yana and Yeva were loaded onto buses along with dozens of other children, holding their original birth certificates as instructed.
Yura Verbovytskyi, 15, who was also on the buses that day, said the mood was excited, not fearful.
But as they set off, the Russian soldiers supervising the journey made the sign of the cross.
"That's when we first thought, 'What the hell is going on here?'" Juraj said.
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
Pictures of the Ukraine war: great horror and small moments of happiness
Two weeks later, the children did not return, as promised by the Russian administration.
"I realized the girls weren't coming back and I tried to reach the school but there was nobody there," Markina said.
Another two weeks passed before Ukrainian troops arrived in Kherson and liberated the city from Russian occupation - however, Markina's daughters were stuck on the other side of the war, with the border crossings into Crimea not open.
For months, families in Kherson could only reach their absent children through messaging apps, occasionally a phone call, and sometimes couldn't speak to each other for a week when heavy shells cut phone lines.
They struggled with spending birthdays, Christmas and New Year's separately.
Jura's mother, Toma Verbovytskyi, 45, said she would wear his clothes around the house "just to feel close to him".
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Ukrainian children play on a wrecked Russian tank.
Moscow is said to have abducted thousands of children from Ukraine.
© Christoph Soeder/dpa
Kremlin is said to have removed more than 16,000 children from Ukraine
According to the National Information Office of Ukraine, more than 16,000 children have been taken to Russia or Russian-controlled areas since the invasion in February last year, while other estimates put the number at as high as 400,000.
Moscow claims all the children now under its care are either orphans or have asked for an evacuation, but Kiev warns of a far worse plot: a generational murder, an attempt to erase Ukraine's identity by robbing it of a future
.
Some children were abducted from occupied territories such as Kherson and Kharkiv region and their parents were asked to sign a release form without being told the children would not be coming back.
Others were kidnapped from conflict zones like Mariupol or from filtration camps, the Russian collection points for evacuees from war zones in Ukraine.
Many remain in camps or foster families, but an unknown number of children, including children whose parents were killed by Russian forces, have been forcibly adopted in Russia.
A handful of children have returned home to Ukraine from Russia
The deportations were condemned as war crimes by the international community.
In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who herself adopted 15-year-old Filip from Mariupol.
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Belongs to Vladimir Putin's closest circle: Russia's children's commissioner Maria Lwowa-Belowa.
© Ulf Mauder/dpa
But some, a tiny handful, of the Ukrainian children have been returned to their homes.
Through a local Telegram group, Markina, Verbovytskyi and others learned about a charity, Save Ukraine, which works to repatriate Ukrainian children.
In early April, after two months of nervous planning, a group of 13 women embarked on an arduous journey across Poland, Belarus and deep into enemy territory to rescue 31 children.
They were eventually reunited in a camp on the western side of the Crimean peninsula.
“My legs are like jelly.
You are callous.
My hands are tingling and my knuckles are swollen.
It's been a really tough, long journey, but I've got my girls
Svitlana Markina
“My legs are like jelly.
You are callous.
My hands are tingling and my knuckles are swollen.
It was a really hard, long journey, but I have my girls," Markina said tearfully when they arrived back in Kiev a week later.
"I'm incredibly happy - I've brought my son back and I feel whole again.
Before it was like I couldn't breathe," Verbovytskyi said as he got off the bus while still wearing Jura's sweatpants.
Organization wants to get as many children as possible from Ukraine
The organization Save Ukraine, which works to locate and bring back as many children as possible from Russia, assisted the International Criminal Court investigation.
Mykola Kuleba, head of the charity, said the first mothers reported their children being taken to "summer camps" in August last year, and the first rescue operation took place in September.
Russian law banned the adoption of foreign children without their home country's consent until Putin signed a decree relaxing the rules last May.
Money is offered to Russian families willing to adopt.
At least 400 Ukrainian orphans have been adopted by Russian families, according to the Ukraine-based Regional Center for Human Rights, which calculated its number in January using data from the Russian government.
Russia said 1,000 more are waiting for adoption.
A Yale Humanitarian Research Lab study released in February identified 32 “integration camps” where children are indoctrinated in Russian history, propaganda, language and culture.
To the author
Liz Cookman
is a journalist in Ukraine covering the human costs of war.
Twitter: @Liz_Cookman
"If a child stays in the Russian Federation for a year, it's difficult to bring them back," Kuleba said.
"The propaganda and brainwashing will convince them that they are Russians and that Ukraine is not a country, so now is the most important time to bring these children back."
95 children are back in Ukraine from Russia
So far, Save Ukraine has been able to bring back 95 children, and another 100 are being processed.
Some return with tales of harsh punishments and harsh regimes.
At least one returned child is now in a mental institution.
Markina and Verbovytskyi's children did not report abuse, although Save Ukraine officials said it can sometimes take time for the children to process what happened.
According to one child from the group speaking at a press conference organized by Save Ukraine, there were cockroaches in the dining rooms, the pillows were moldy and some of the children were being beaten.
The returned children are offered a three-month rehabilitation program with psychosocial teams.
The whereabouts of a child can be reported through the Save Ukraine hotline, by the police or NGOs, as well as by the mothers or children themselves.
It is too dangerous for aid workers to cross the border and men between the ages of 18 and 60 cannot leave Ukraine because of the mobilization.
Save Ukraine organizes a route, pays the costs through private donations and helps the mothers or close female family members to get to Russia or the territory under its control.
They advise the women what to say at the border, what to delete from their cell phones and how to behave if they are questioned.
We all hugged and cried non-stop for 15 minutes and couldn't let go of each other.
Svitlana Markina describes the reunion with her children
Markina's hands were shaking with nervousness as the women left Kiev.
"I'm so scared that something will go wrong and I won't be able to reach my girls," she said at the time.
From Belarus they took a flight to Moscow and then drove 1,000 miles to Crimea.
Along the way, they endured hostile police checks and hours of airport interrogation - a journey so arduous that one member of the group, Olga, 65, died in Krasnodar, just hours before crossing to Crimea heart attack died.
There was an emotional reunion at the Druzhba camp—Russian for friendship—in Evpatoria, which housed a few dozen children.
"There was so much noise because all the kids were screaming, 'Mom, Mom!
We all hugged and cried non-stop for 15 minutes and couldn't let go of each other," Markina said.
The mothers said the children had grown noticeably during their absence.
Ukraine war: Children return to crisis areas
After just an hour, the women set out again to complete the same route in reverse with Yana, Yeva, Yura and most of the others.
About 14 Ukrainian children were left behind as they could only be placed in the care of a close family member.
Among them were Olga's two grandchildren.
Save Ukraine is working on another mission to bring her back.
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Now the returning families, most of whom are still recovering in Kiev, face a new challenge: returning to Kherson, a city still recovering from eight months of occupation.
There is little work, few shops are open and the city is regularly shelled.
"An advantage of the camp was that we were far from the front line and there were no explosions," says Yana.
On Friday alone, the Cherson region was shelled 96 times;
shelling continued on Saturday, killing a mother and her daughter.
Local residents have been warned not to gather for Orthodox Easter, and Ukraine has announced plans for a new offensive this spring to retake more Russian-held territory, which could lead to more retaliatory strikes.
"I'm afraid to go back to Kherson because there is so much shelling there," Yura said.
"It might be scary, but it's my home.
I'll get used to it." (Liz Cookman)
We are currently testing machine translation. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English in the magazine "ForeignPolicy.com" on April 17, 2023 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.
List of rubrics: © Christoph Soeder/dpa