Five Orphaned Children Returned Home from Russian-Occupied Territories of Ukraine

Five orphaned children who were illegally deported by Russian forces were returned to Ukrainian territory by the Save Ukraine team. This was announced by the head of the organization Mykola Kuleba.

“Today [May 31] Ukraine is rejoicing in a special way: we managed to save five wards of the Novopetrivsk orphanage in the Mykolaiv region,” Kuleba wrote.

As stated in the report, the children lived on the front line for three months, hiding from bombs and missiles in the basement without food or water. In mid-July 2022, they were kidnapped by Russian troops at gunpoint and taken to territories occupied by Russia.

“At first, the children were kept in the Kherson center for social and psychological rehabilitation. Every day, Russian soldiers came to them and checked to see if anyone had escaped. They were forbidden from communicating with their relatives and were threatened,” Mykola Kuleba wrote.

In October 2022, Russian army took the children to temporarily occupied Crimea, and then to Krasnodar region, Russia. The Save Ukraine team was eventually able to get the children to safety in Georgia, and then they were finally located back to Ukraine.

According to Ukraine’s data, over 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly relocated to Russia and Russian occupied territories since the beginning of full-scale war.