Ukraine brings back three children from Russian-occupied territories

Three more Ukrainian children were returned from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. One of the returnees is eight years old, and the other two are 18-year-old brothers.

Mykola Kuleba, the founder of the Save Ukraine fund, which organized the return, reported this.

He noted that in this way, the foundation completed the 14th rescue mission.

During it, 14 children were returned to Ukraine, 7 of whom were children deprived of parental care.

One of the rescued – 8-year-old Yelisey – lived with his grandmother in the occupied part of the Kherson region. After the death of his grandmother, the occupation authorities sent the boy to a boarding school. His mother, who lived in Odesa, could not go to pick up her son due to her health condition, and her cousin was not given the child, although she had all the documents.

Since Yelisey spent half a year in the territory of the Russian Federation without parental care, he was granted a status that allowed, in particular, to give him to a Russian family.

"It was necessary to take action because if a child remains in the Russian Federation without parental care for six months, they are given a status that enables them to be placed with a Russian family or choose another form of placement. Therefore, our team made every effort to ensure that the mother received necessary medical assistance and could retrieve the child from the occupied territory," Kuleba emphasized.

Yelisey's mother went to get her son, and after interrogations by the Federal Security Service, she was finally able to take him from the boarding school.

The other two boys are brothers Andriy and Mykhailo. They are orphans and were raised by a foster family in the occupied territory before the full-scale invasion.

When they turned 18, they realized that the occupation authorities would send them to fight against Ukraine, says Kuleba. In Ukraine, they were wanted as missing persons.

"Now all three are safe. The children are waiting for recovery and return to normal life," wrote Kuleba.

Rubryka previously wrote about the return to Ukraine of Bohdan Yermokhin, who was deported from Mariupol to Russia.

In Russia, he was illegally served with a summons. Therefore, the deported teenager from Mariupol, Bohdan Yermokhin, turned to President Volodymyr Zelensky and called for help to return to Ukraine.

As Rubryka reported, over 100 schoolchildren from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in Ukraine were taken to hospitals in the Saratov region of Russia. Sadly, a 12-year-old child passed away, unable to survive the "treatment" in Russia.

Also, on December 21, 17-year-old Mykhailo, who lived in the temporarily occupied territory, was returned to the controlled territory of Ukraine: it took about a month to rescue him.

On December 22, a 12-year-old boy, the son of a servicewoman, was returned.

For reference:

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian aggression, the soldiers of the enemy army have been taking Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation and the territories controlled by them. In Ukraine, they created a map of the camps to which children are sent.

As reported, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the Russian invaders are intensifying the forced planting of the Russian aggressive ideology.

In addition, the national resistance reports that the Russian occupiers are detaining children in the temporarily occupied territories to put pressure on their parents.

It was also reported that the Russians are recruiting Crimean schoolchildren to the "Unarmy" [a Russian children's and youth military organization established under the Russian Ministry of Defense – ed.]

As reported by Ombudsman Lubinets, the deportation of more than 19,500 Ukrainian children has been officially confirmed.