Displaying 1 - 10 of 50
A teenage orphan who became a posterchild for Moscow's deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia said he was instructed by officials to recite pro-Russian talking points for television cameras and threatened with a beating when he complained about conditions.
Eighteen-year-old Denys Kostev is one of 4,000 orphans and children without parental care who, according to Kyiv, have been unlawfully taken to Russian-controlled territory following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia says it has done nothing unlawful, and it only moved the children to protect them from war.
Reuters…
The most important phone call of Yevhen Mezhevyi’s life came in mid-June of 2022. His anxiety, fear and exhaustion at the time makes him fuzzy about the exact date.
What he does remember is the sound of his son’s voice. Matvii was calling from Russia, where he and his two younger sisters had been forcibly deported nearly a month before — the same morning Mezhevyi, a single father and Ukrainian soldier from Mariupol, had been released without explanation after spending 45 days as a…
When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago now, it didn't just take territory. It separated thousands of Ukrainian children from the only home they've ever known, relocating them to Russian-occupied territory or to Russia itself. Most of those children have not returned. Some who have are young adults now, and they're speaking out.
During the 14 months for which Veronika Vlasenko attended school in Russia, she was regularly told by teachers and fellow students that she would never be able to go home to Ukraine. “Every day they said to me that I would be staying here for ever and would never leave Russia,” she said. “They told me that Ukraine doesn’t exist, that it never existed, that we’re all Russians … At times the other kids would beat me for being pro-Ukrainian.”
Veronika was one of nearly…
Ukrainian officials have condemned a new decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in early 2024 simplifying the process of conferring Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children abducted from wartime Ukraine.
Issued on January 4, 2024, the citizenship decree is officially designed to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to foreign nationals and stateless persons. Officials in Kyiv highlighted one particularly contentious section indicating that orphaned Ukrainian children or those deprived of parental…
Ukraine has condemned a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin making it possible to confer Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children moved to Russia.
Last March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin over Russia's policy of forced child deportations.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry called the decree illegal.
However, Russia insists it is moving the children out of harm's way.
On 4 January, Putin signed a…
A Russian lawmaker and staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin has denied media allegations that he adopted a missing 2-year-old girl who was removed from a Ukrainian children’s home and changed her name in Russia. Sergey Mironov, 70, the leader of political party A Just Russia, asserted on social media that the Ukrainian security services and their Western partners concocted a “fake” report to discredit true…
Families search in vain through a maze of foster homes and holiday camps
Kostya Ten (pictured above) was 13 years old when Russian troops entered his village of Kosatske on the banks of the Dnieper in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine. He was a tearaway kid from a complicated family. His mother died when he was tiny; his father, who was ethnically Korean, used to grow watermelons but was bedridden following a stroke. He had five older sisters and was treated as the baby of the family. At the age of 11, Kostya began running around with a gang of older boys who stole scrap metal…
Russia has agreed to return four Ukrainian children to their families, as part of a deal brokered by Qatar.
The youngest is two years old and the oldest is 17.
The repatriation is part of a pilot scheme to return more of the thousands of children taken by Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
Ukraine says it has identified 20,000 children who it alleges were abducted by Russia.
This calm, vivid documentary looks at the thousands of youngsters missing amidst the invasion – and their families’ search.
Be warned: the Russian response may cause outrage
These are terrible times, bleak times, and Ukraine’s Stolen Children is one of many films continuing to shed light on the growing list of horrors blighting the world. Veteran journalist and film-maker Shahida Tulaganova tells the horrifying story of the thousands of children reported missing from …