As part of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative, his chief of staff announced on Thursday, a group of 23 Ukrainian children and teenagers has been rescued from occupied territories.
Head of the Presidential Office Andrii Yermak reported that among the rescued children were two sisters, aged 11 and 14, who had been forced to attend a Russian school. Moscow’s agents threatened their mother that, if she refused, they would take the children away.
“Today, all the rescued children are safe. They are receiving medical, psychological, and humanitarian assistance, restoring their documents, and gradually returning to a peaceful life. I am grateful to Save Ukraine, the Joint Center of the Security Service of Ukraine for coordinating the search and release of prisoners of war and illegally detained persons, and to all partners for helping save these children,” Yermak wrote.
Earlier this month, Kyiv Post reported that occupation authorities have forcibly placed 48 Ukrainian children in the occupied Donetsk region in psychiatric institutions under accusations of “extremism.”
According to data from the self-proclaimed “DNR” [Donetsk People’s Republic], 161 minors have faced criminal charges, with 48 of them sent to forced psychiatric treatment. Others have been subjected to administrative penalties, including fines.
Over the course of its invasion, Russia has abducted and transferred an estimated 20,000 Ukrainian children to areas under its control, forced them to relinquish their Ukrainian citizenship and obtain Russian passports instead, and placed them into Russian families against their will.
At least 657 Ukrainian children have died directly as a result of the Russian invasion.
One of the teenagers rescued this week, who was orphaned during the invasion, was forced to obtain a Russian passport, but the young man firmly refused to attend a Russian school.
Also, a small girl and her mother were once denied permission to leave the occupied area because one of their relatives served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Since then, the family had lived under constant pressure and without any official documents, state media Ukrinform described.