Russia-Ukraine war: 30 Ukrainian children returned to families

Dozens of Ukrainian children that were sent to Russia reunited with their families in Ukraine over the weekend. The reunions come amidst the alleged forced deportation efforts by Russia as the war in Ukraine continues.

A humanitarian group, Save Ukraine, said Friday last week that over 30 Ukrainian children reunited with their families following rescue efforts. Save Ukraine said that the children and their relatives crossed the border into Ukrainian-controlled territory. Video footage that was released showed children carrying suitcases and bags crossing the border on foot and then boarding a bus.

“Now, the fifth rescue mission is nearing its completion. It was special regarding the number of children we managed to return and also because of its complexity,” said Save Ukraine founder Mykola Kuleba, who also praised the “heroic mothers” who traveled to retrieve their children in what was the “most difficult” of the charity’s rescue missions so far.

Save Ukraine helped the Ukrainian relatives of the children that were taken with the logistics, transport, and planning that was needed to carry out the efforts to bring their children back. In a post on Facebook, Kuleba said that Ukrainian relatives were subjected to hours of interrogation by Russia’s security service. Kuleba said all the children that were returned to Ukraine by the humanitarian group said that no one in Russia was trying to find their parents in Ukraine.

“There were kids who changed their locations five times in five months, some children say that they were living with rats and cockroaches,” said Kuleba, adding that the children were taken to what Russians referred to as summer camps from the occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson and Kharkiv.

Ukraine has estimated that almost 19,500 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Kyiv condemned the move as illegal deportation.

While the heaviest fighting in the war is in Ukraine’s Bakhmut region, the British defense ministry said that Moscow ramped up its armored assaults in the town of Marinka in the Donetsk region in recent days. The ministry said that fighting for the town has already happened in 2014 and has since been reduced to rubble due to artillery fire, and that Marinka “commands the approaches to Donetsk and the key H15 road.”