Ukraine Returns Five Children From Temporarily Occupied Territories

On March 29, Ukraine has successfully returned five more children from the temporarily occupied territories and Russia under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative.

The operation was carried out with the support of the Office of the Ombudsman and in coordination with the State of Qatar, which acted as a mediator.

According to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, among the returned children is a 10-year-old boy who had remained in an occupied area with his ill grandmother.

His mother, who was in another city when Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, made several unsuccessful attempts to retrieve him. The family has now been reunited in Ukraine.

Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets stated that the children are between 11 and 16 years old and were returned from the occupied territories of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions. He noted that each case required legal assistance and close coordination with families or guardians.

One of the children is a 12-year-old girl whose parents are divorced and whose father is currently held in Russian captivity.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, she has been forced to relocate multiple times and experienced a decline in both her mental and physical health. Ukrainian authorities assisted the girl’s grandmother in obtaining custody, and she will now receive the necessary support.

Another case involved a boy who had been living with his father under conditions of systematic abuse. Despite documented incidents of physical violence, local so-called “social services” of the Russian occupation authorities failed to intervene.

His mother attempted to retrieve him independently but was unsuccessful. The child was eventually returned after she contacted the Ombudsman’s Office, with assistance from Qatari mediation.

Lubinets emphasized that the Ombudsman’s Office maintained continuous communication with the families involved and provided legal and logistical support throughout the return process.

Bring Kids Back UA is a Ukrainian humanitarian program launched in 2023 at the initiative of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It aims to return and reintegrate deported children, support their social adaptation, promote family-based care, and document crimes for international accountability, including through proceedings at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Earlier, four Ukrainian teenagers were returned from Russian-occupied territories as part of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative. Among them was a 14-year-old girl denied medical care due to her Ukrainian citizenship, and a 16-year-old boy, the son of a Ukrainian soldier, who faced interrogation and forced military registration.

The group also included children subjected to psychological pressure, threats of deportation, and restrictions on education under the Russian curriculum.

Protect Ukraine’s future generations

Donate towards school reconstruction, bomb shelters and power generators to ensure a safer educational environment for Ukrainian children

DONATE