Another 13 children from the occupied territories of Kherson Oblast, Luhansk Oblast, and Zaporizhzhia Oblast were returned to Ukraine, reported the charitable organization Save Ukraine and the ex-envoy of the president for childrenʼs rights, Mykola Kuleba.
"Mother hid Olesya from the occupation authorities and her fellow villagers for a whole year so that no one would find out that the girl lived with her and force her to study at a Russian school. My parents took Nikita, Sashka, and Andrii to their grandparents on the left bank, where it was safer then. But after the liberation of Right Bank, the family was divided. The parents were waiting for the de-occupation to take their children, but they realized that it would not happen soon. The divorced parents of Polina, Taras, and Matvyi took different positions after the start of the full-scale war: mom was painfully worried about Ukraine, and dad became pro-Russian. And it was dad who banned mom from leaving the territory of Russia. There, during the occupation, children were forced to go to a Russian school, and the mother was threatened with deprivation of her parental rights," the organization said.
They added that the return of these children was a task with an "asterisk", but in the end, it was done.
In just 11 missions, Save Ukraine managed to return 176 children.