Ukrainian authorities return 12-year-old child from occupied Donetsk region
Photo: Gwara Media
David is another Ukrainian child who's been returned from his occupied hometown in the Donetsk region, says the Minister of Reintegration Iryna Vereshchuk.
David was 11 years old when he first saw Russia's all-out war in 2022. He lived with his great-grandmother in the village of Staromlynivka, now occupied.
The boy's mother, Lilia, and his three younger siblings were living in the western Lviv region at the time. David got stuck in the Russian occupation, and the front line separated the family.
Lilia contacted the Ukraine's Ministry of Reintegration hotline, after which many months of hard work began.
I am very grateful to Daria Kasyanova and her team of the "Way Home" project for their professionalism and dedication. Today the boy is in Kyiv. He hugged his mother. This is a great happiness, said Vereshchuk.
Previously, in August, a 14-year-old boy was returned from the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region, who was about to be placed in an orphanage. A family living in the Kyiv region agreed to take custody of the boy.
The Kremlin-appointed commissioner for children's rights Maria Lvova-Belova claims that Russia has "evacuated" about 4,8 million Ukrainians since the start of the all-out war. Among them were more than 700 thousand children who allegedly had no parents.
According to official data of the Ukrainian authorities, from February 24, 2022 Russia has deported 19,546 children. Currently, only 386 children are back home.
President Volodymyr Zelensky and Bartholomew I, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, discussed the implementation of Ukraine's peace formula and the return of the children kidnapped by Russian troops.
Ukraine's Representative to the UN Serhii Kyslytsia said that Russia's invasion has affected all 7,5 million children. Authorities located all deported children in 57 regions of Russia.
After the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian authorities changed their tactics of deporting Ukrainian children.
Russian authorities began to use new definitions in official documents so that no one could accuse them of kidnapping. Rubryka found out which ones.
