Kidnapped, abused, humiliated – the Ukrainian children stolen by Russia
Anastasiia Motychak did not know why Irina – the person in charge of her camp in Russian-occupied Crimea – had just slapped her across the face; she just knew she missed her mum and wanted to go home to the Ukrainian city of Kherson.
It had been two months since the then 15-year-old had been put on a bus and moved from the then Russian-occupied Kherson, in southern Ukraine, to a two-week “vacation camp” in Yevpatoria, western Crimea. Kherson was no place for a child, the Russian soldiers had warned.
Days later, Ukrainian forces liberated the city. But by then, Anastasiia was 150 miles deeper into occupied territory, sleeping in a room with barred windows.
Roughly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been moved to such camps since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to Ukrainian officials. Nearly a quarter of those who have been taken are orphans or children without parental care.
More than 70 camps for forcibly “re-educating” children have been found, according to the Ukrainian government, including in Belarus, occupied Crimea and even far-east Russia, where the children are three times closer to the United States than Ukraine.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-latest-putin-zelensky-summit-news-b2563210.htmlRead Tom Watling’s special report:
