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Ukrainian Brings Back Five Children Back From Temporarily Occupied Kherson
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Five more children have been successfully returned to Ukrainian-controlled territory from the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region, including four who were deprived of parental care.
This was reported by Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration on March 26.
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“Five more children have been brought back to Ukrainian-controlled territory from the temporarily occupied part of Kherson region,” Prokudin stated in his message.
Among those returned are four children, aged 9 to 16, who had been deprived of parental care, as well as one adult who had also been a child deprived of parental care.
Prokudin shared that one of the children, a nine-year-old boy, had lived under constant shelling for four years, as his family was unable to leave their occupied village. Russian shells regularly flew past his home, and mines repeatedly fell in their yard.
Additionally, a young girl, upon reaching adulthood, was able to leave the occupation after enduring severe conditions. She had lived without food or water, as Russian forces aggressively targeted civilians, including young women, on the streets of her town.
Currently, all the returned children are safe and have been placed in “Hope and Recovery” centers, where they are receiving psychological support, assistance with documentation, housing, and care.
Meanwhile, a recent study by Yale University School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab has confirmed that Russian state-owned companies, including Gazprom and Rosneft, were involved in the forced transportation and "re-education" of more than 2,000 Ukrainian children from temporarily occupied territories between 2022 and 2025.
The report identifies at least 2,158 children from Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions who were transferred to six camps in Russia and occupied Crimea. These camps included Prometey, Signal, Kuban Niva, Art-Kvest, Sputnik, and the A.V. Kazakevich Children’s Health Camp.
Three of these camps were operated by Gazprom subsidiaries at the time, and two of them remain under the company's control. Rosneft, through its trade union, facilitated the transfer of 100 children to three camps in 2023. The companies provided vouchers for children to attend camps that promoted pro-Russian re-education programs at little or no cost.
However, Ukraine continues to receive strong international backing in its efforts to repatriate deported children, with 38 countries, the Council of Europe, and the European Union involved in the process.
As of March 25, a total of 2,058 children have been successfully returned to Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Ombudsman’s Office.
-c439b7bd9030ecf9d5a4287dc361ba31.jpg "Photo of Katherina Popilnichenko")