Ukraine brings back orphaned teenager abducted to occupied Luhansk

Ukraine returned an orphaned teenager from the temporarily captured territory of the Luhansk region. The young man was taken under the care of his older sister.

Pavlo and Anastasia are brother and sister who were born and raised in Lysychansk, the Luhansk region. A few years ago, the girl moved to Dnipro.

Pavlo lived with his parents, but recently the boy became an orphan. After that, the occupiers put him in a shelter in Luhansk.

When Anastasia found out about this, she decided to return her brother as soon as possible. In April, the girl applied to the Ministry of Reintegration, which issued guardianship for him.

It took about a month to get the boy back. The other day, Anastasia and Pavlo returned together to Ukraine, the agency adds.

So far, Russia has deported more than 20,000 children from Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war. Russian authorities change the names, surnames, and dates of birth of illegally deported minors.

At the same time, they declare that they "do not detain anyone" and Ukrainian mothers can come and take back their kids. In April, some parents managed to carry out an operation to return their children: mothers and volunteers went to bring back their sons and daughters. Then it was finally possible to return 15 people from Russian captivity