Ukraine returns four children from Russia-captured territories

Mykola Kuleba, the founder of Save Ukraine children's rescue center, says the team returned four more Ukrainian children from the occupied territories and Russia.

Some of them couldn't see their families for years.

"Some of them had not seen each other for almost two years. Some of them could not be picked up by their parents for several months, and the Russians wanted to send the child to a rehabilitation center. Fortunately, these ordeals are over, and now all the children are safe," Kuleba said in a Facebook post.

This is the 15th rescue mission of Save Ukraine organization, and the foundation's team has returned 231 Ukrainian children from Russia and the occupied territories.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on March 17, 2023, for the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova and Russian leader Vladimir Putin over children's deportation.

Since the beginning of the full-scale⁷ aggression, Russian forces have been taking Ukrainian children to the territories under their control.

Ukraine has created a map of the camps to which children are sent.

Russians are intensifying the forced imposition of their aggressive ideology. The national resistance reports that in the occupied territories, enemy forces detain children to put pressure on their parents.

According to Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, the deportation of more than 19,500 Ukrainian children has been officially confirmed.

On January 4, Putin signed a decree allowing Ukrainian children to be granted Russian citizenship. Citizenship will be granted to ensure that deported Ukrainian children "do not legally remain in Russia."