As part of the initiative of the President of Ukraine “Bring Kids Back UA” and with the assistance of the “Save Ukraine” team, another group of children and adolescents from the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region was returned to the territory controlled by Ukraine.
This was reported by the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin.
Among them are boys and girls aged from 8 months to 17 years. In particular, the occupation authorities tried to forcibly place an 11-year-old girl in a boarding school, and opened a criminal case against her mother and illegally deprived her of parental rights due to the womanʼs service in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Prokudin also reported that Russian soldiers repeatedly took boys aged five and eleven to the district center for so-called courts, where the children were interrogated, humiliated, and mocked by their father in front of them. Currently, all the returned children are safe and receiving the necessary assistance.
Since the beginning of 2026, according to Prokudin, 19 children have already been returned from the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region to the territory controlled by Ukraine.
- The deportation of Ukrainian children is one of Russiaʼs war crimes, for which the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the Russian Childrenʼs Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova.
- Ukraine has officially confirmed that Russia has abducted almost 19 500 Ukrainian children. The Russian Federation itself says that it has taken away 744 000 children. Only about 1 800 have been returned to Ukraine. Ukraine also has evidence that Belarus is participating in the deportation of Ukrainian children.
- On December 3, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding the return of all illegally removed Ukrainian children.
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