"Striped Bare, Captured on Camera": The Lives of Ukrainian Children Under Russian Control

 

Another deported child was returned to Ukraine at the beginning of the year, the Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories announced on January 2. The agency states that in April 2022, 17-year-old Aleksandr, as part of a group of 31 children, was taken from occupied Mariupol to Moscow. Most of the children from that group were orphans or deprived of parental care. Now the young man is already in Kiev. He is the fifth of this group to be returned, the Ministry of Reintegration announced.

Some of the children from the "list 31" in Russia have been placed in new families. Among them were Bohdan Jermokhin and Pilip Golovnja, who was adopted by Maria Lvova-Belova, Commissioner of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Children's Rights. Bohdan Yermokhin managed to be returned to Ukraine in November last year, and before that he recorded a personal appeal to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. In Russia, Yermokhin received a summons and was to be sent to the army.

 

"More than a million children under the rule of the Russian Federation"

 

Nikola Kuleba, the founder of the organization Save Ukraine, which deals with the return of deported children, told "Novosti iz Azov" that in 2023 they managed to return 226 children from Russia and the occupied territories, of which more than 60 are orphans. The human rights defender noted that since 2014, more than a million Ukrainian children have been under Russian rule.

"These are children who were deported before the big invasion, who moved with their families or were kidnapped from their families. That is, in different ways they ended up either in the Russian Federation or in the occupied territories under the rule of Russia. And that is a problem, because today we only stick to figures from which it is evident that these children could be forcibly taken away, without the knowledge of their relatives and loved ones. The children who were taken were deported, because this is also a deportation, with families, grandmothers, grandfathers, so-called. volunteers or representatives of the Red Cross, were also loaded into military vehicles and buses and taken to Russia. Next - filtering and moving to Russia. And these children are not in the statistics. They are not registered, but they are our Ukrainian children," said Kuleba.

 

"This is genocide"

 

Most of the children transported to Russia from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as from Crimea since 2014, already have Russian passports, Kuleba says.

"This is a tragedy, this is genocide. Here is a child who lives today even in the occupied territory, even in his family, who was forced to take a Russian birth certificate, his parents were forced to take a Russian passport, the child was forced to go to a Russian school and study Russian subjects, they are writing letters to the Russian military, and especially to those children who have grown up since 2014 and were militarized and forced to wear Russian military uniforms to fight against Ukraine, turning them against

Ukraine. This is genocide. And these are thousands of young people, Ukrainians who have been Russified, who have been instilled with hatred for Ukraine, they are fighting against Ukraine today," Kuleba stressed.

 

The courage and patriotism of Ukrainian children is often surprising, says the human rights defender. Some of them publicly renounce their Russian passports.

"Just two days ago I was talking to a girl, who is an orphan. We managed to get her back with her brother. And I asked her, tell me what, what kind of chemistry is going on in you, what made you not stop, to rest? The girl told me: “I'm thinking about it myself. I didn't want to become Russian. I hated the very thought of getting a Russian passport."

They tried to break her mentally in every possible way. There was no physical coercion. But there is one of the boys, and he is an orphan, who was given the opportunity to return, now he is already in Ukraine, physical education methods were applied to him, because he refused to accept the citizenship of the Russian Federation. And he tore up the birth certificate that Muscovites ceremoniously handed him in front of them. For which he was severely punished", said Kuleba.

 

"Psychological and physical pressure"

 

Children returning to Ukraine say that they were subjected to psychological and sometimes physical pressure from the occupiers, says the founder of Save Ukraine.

"Do you know what threats there were? If you say something bad about Russia, you will be blamed: "You should thank us and always remember the hand that fed you." The child remembers being interrogated for hours, either by the parents or by those who took them, including themselves. He remembers their beatings, humiliation, when they stripped them naked and filmed them.

Just imagine, an FSB officer strips a mother and a child naked, films them with a camera and says that if they say something bad and it gets out, he will spread that video on social networks - in the settlement where you lived in the occupied territory. I can talk a lot about the crimes committed there by the occupiers. And these children, with tears in their eyes, always remember the border, the sign of Ukraine, the Ukrainian flag, the Ukrainian land, their emotions, tears," said Kuleba.

 

"Nazis scare orphans"

 

According to the data of the Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, there are currently about 4,000 children in foster care in the occupied territories or have been deported to the territory of Russia. The agency published that data at the end of December 2023. It is impossible to trace their likely further movement. In addition, contact has been lost with many families whose children are being raised, and the fate of the children is unknown.

Therefore, the Ukrainian government recently approved changes concerning the powers of the heads of district state administrations, as well as the executive bodies of local councils. Now they must submit to the National Police requests for the search for orphans and children deprived of parental care, who were forcibly relocated to the territory of Russia or who remained in the occupied territories.

Kuleba pointed out that it is very difficult to return orphans. They cannot return, even if they have legal representatives.

"Children who are on social networks can easily have their phones taken away. Like from the boy Serhijko, an orphan, whom the orphan's sister came to take away from Russia. He was already placed in a Russian foster family, which did not want to give him up. And the sister was told that the child will not return to Ukraine: "You have a war there, and he will live in Russia, he likes it".

During the months he was in this family, he was treated so badly that the boy told his sister "I will not go to Ukraine, because the Nazis will kill me". He kept hearing that from his Russian adoptive family. For several hours the nurse talked to him and tried to reach his feelings, the fact that he is a brother and she is a sister. We managed to get them back, and today this boy is growing up happily in a Ukrainian family," said Kuleba.

 

Given the hostilities and the Russian occupation of parts of the southern territories of Ukraine, the editorial office cannot obtain official confirmation of some of the statements made or independently verify them.

 

"They were taken to Crimea and not returned"

 

"Novosti Azov" spoke with a resident of Kherson who, with the help of the Save Ukraine organization, managed to return her son from a camp in occupied Crimea. The child arrived there in October 2022. They went on vacation for two weeks, however, the Russian occupation forces were in no hurry to return the children. This is what Alla Jacentjuk told us:

"The children were supposed to return on October 21, but around October 15, Danja called and said, "Mom, they tell us that we will be here longer." I say: "No, you will come home, everything will be fine". On October 16, the class teacher calls late and simply says: "Pick up your children". And the relationship with her disappeared, the parents just started to panic. We went to talk to the director, to find out what happened," said the resident of Herson.

The school director assured them that the children would be brought later, the woman says. But the children were never brought, and already on November 12, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated Kherson, but the only fastest way to Crimea was blocked, the interlocutor noted.

The management of the Crimean camp did not contact the parents. Children could be picked up independently, but few parents could financially afford a trip to occupied Crimea. Alla managed to get her son back six months later.

"Parents had to go at their own expense. When I called the carriers, they told me such large sums of 1,000-1,500 dollars. However, at that time I didn't have that kind of money and the only way I could find was through Save Ukraine. The whole trip to Crimea and back to Kiev took 14 days. It was mental

hard at the trials in Belarus. During the interrogation, we were held for 14 hours at the Vnukovo airport. They interrogated us there. It was hard. Their attitude towards a person is that you are nobody if you don't have a passport of the Russian Federation. They look down on you, talk rather rudely, despite the fact that I am a woman. I am unarmed, I just went after the child. It was quite difficult mentally," says the woman.

 

"They cleaned the coast, sang the anthem of the Russian Federation"

 

Alla Jacentjuk's son Danilo was sure that the vacation in Crimea would last for two weeks. Already in the third week, the children began to doubt that they would not be taken to Kherson. In the camp, they began to convince them not to return home.

"They said that we should not return to Ukraine, because "we will have no future, there will always be shootings" and the Russians wanted to free us from ourselves. They said that "we should be grateful to Russia for taking us away, and Ukraine is nobody". Even they said in their news that they paid for Ukrainian children to go home to Ukraine. There was a great panic that we would not return home. At first we thought they were just intimidating us into behaving well, but then we were transferred to another camp, where we stayed for six months," said the boy.

At the beginning, they treated the children well in the camp, but then they started forcing them to do things they didn't want to do, says Danilo. According to him, for example, they were forced to clean the seashore before the arrival of other children.

"The prime minister came to us from Moscow and the camp administration told us to dress nicely and clean the rooms, perform on stage and sing the Russian national anthem, "Forward Russia", and I forgot the third song. That is, they told us to say that they treat us very well. When we had a rehearsal, we had to stand when the Russian national anthem was played. The high school students who were for Ukraine sat, but then they wrote an explanation why they sat to the anthem of Russia," recalls Danilo.

 

"More than two thousand children in Belarus"

In order to hide the facts about the deportation of Ukrainian children, Russia takes them out through Belarus. Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said this in an interview for "Ukrinform" on December 23. According to him, the occupiers are constantly compiling new lists of children who are currently in the occupied territories, especially in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and who will be taken to Russia through the territory of Belarus. Answering the question of how many Ukrainian children there are on the territory of Belarus, the ombudsman noted that there could be thousands of them.

Belarusian opposition politician Pavlo Latushko follows cases of children being moved from Ukrainian territories to Belarus. He told "Novosti Azov" that 2,150 children were taken from 20 settlements in the occupied regions. They are placed, in particular, in camps in the Minsk and Gomel regions.

"The movement was carried out in six places on the territory of Belarus. This activity has a systematic, permanent nature. The organizers of these criminal actions are the dictator Lukashenko, as well as his accomplices, who accordingly carry out his orders. We are talking about the fact that a hierarchy was created in Belarus when there is a leader who usurped the power of the president. At the same time, he is the chairman of the Supreme State Council of the State of the Union. He gives the appropriate instructions at the ministerial level, and further these instructions are transferred to the local level, including the so-called "non-governmental" organizations. Examples of such organizations include the "Belarusian Republican Youth Union", the "Talai Foundation" and the "Dolphins" organization, a Russian organization registered in the occupied territory of Ukraine. And a number of other organizations," said Latuško.

The deportation of Ukrainian children is financed directly from the federal budget of Russia and Belarus, he claims.

"We are also analyzing Lukashenko's statements, where he publicly admitted twice on June 27 and then on August 11, 2023, that he supports and will support this activity. We have marked the transport routes for the removal of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories. This is done through the city of Rostov-on-Don. In the future, the children will be transported by train to the city of Minsk, and by bus to six locations on the territory of Belarus," says Latuško.

According to him, the Belarusian opposition simultaneously transmits this information to various partners: the ministries of foreign affairs of European countries, the US State Department, various non-governmental organizations, as well as the International Criminal Court.

 

"Military re-education"

 

In Belarus, Ukrainian children are being re-educated according to the narratives of Russian propaganda, the politician added.

"At the same time, military training and militarization of Ukrainian children is carried out. By the way, American researchers state a specific number of groups that they managed to identify. Thus, according to their opinion, nine groups of Ukrainian children underwent transformation, and six groups of Ukrainian children underwent military education. As evidence, we also submit videos, photos and other materials that testify that actions on the transformation of Ukrainian children and military training are carried out with the support of the authorities in Belarus and relevant public organizations," Latuško emphasized.

He added that Lukashenko is an absolute ally of Putin in the war against Ukraine, therefore he will continue to support the policy of illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.

 

"Belarus is not a neutral country in the context of the war that Russia started against Ukraine. Therefore, taking children to the territory of Belarus cannot be considered as the territory of a neutral state. Ukraine did not agree to this. But here too it is important to emphasize the following circumstance. After all, Lukashenko's regime is silent about why the children ended up in such a difficult situation, who is to blame for the death of their parents, who is to blame for the fact that they are suffering from war? And we understand who is the initiator of the aggression - Russia, which supported this aggression - the Lukashenko regime," the Belarusian politician pointed out.

On December 28, Alexander Lukashenko participated in a government meeting with children brought from the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, reports the Associated Press agency, which cannot provide more detailed information about the number of these children. Speaking at this meeting, the de facto ruler of Belarus promised to "embrace these children, bring them into our home, warm them and make their childhood happier."

A recent study by Yale University found that more than 2,400 Ukrainian children between the ages of six and 17 were brought to Belarus from four Ukrainian regions partially occupied by Russian forces. The Belarusian opposition called on the International Criminal Court to hold Lukashenko and his officials accountable for their involvement in the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children.

Belarus has been Moscow's closest ally since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, when Lukashenko allowed the Kremlin to use his country's territory to invade Ukraine. Russia has also stationed some of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.