Like the Hitler Youth: How Russia kidnaps Ukrainian children and turns them against their parents in Ukraine
The deportation of children is exactly the kind of Russian crime for which Russian President Vladimir Putin and his accomplice, Russian Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova, are to be tried in The Hague. According to the government portal Children of War, nearly 19,500 children have been deported. According to Kremlin officials, the figure is almost 730,000.
Three children of Olga Zaporozhchenko from Kherson were also taken by Russians to the occupied Crimea, so to speak, for rehabilitation. Only six months later, thanks to the Save Ukraine Foundation, they were returned. The eldest child, Diana, says that they were taken by bus and brought to Yevpatoria to the Luch camp.
– “There were children from Kherson, Kakhovka, Nova Kakhovka and the Kherson region,” says Diana.
“At first, there was camp life, then they had something similar to a school, but, of course, without a hint of Ukrainian language or history.
– There were three lessons of 30 minutes each, Russian subjects, nothing Ukrainian. They made us sing the national anthem, especially when they came to inspect us,” says the 14-year-old girl.
“They also showed films in the camp, by the way, created by the West, which Russia is against today – Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean.
The children say they were not offended, they were fed, asked how mainland Ukraine lives, and even took metal hryvnias as souvenirs.
Photo: Fakty ICTV
But they would not let them go home, saying that only their parents could take them. So Olha, since she did not have a passport ready, wrote a power of attorney for another woman who also went to pick up the children. That’s how all three of them came back – through Russia, Belarus, Poland, and five days of travelling.
This is a case where everything came together well, the foundation says. Their organisation alone has returned 109 children to Ukraine.
In general, Russia is reluctant to give up our little citizens. After the camps, the children were sent deep into Russia, documents of the aggressor country were prepared for them and the adoption process was launched.
– Therefore, we are now finding cases in which children have either already been adopted or are in boarding schools in Russia. And this complicates the situation considerably, because they prevent us from doing our job in every possible way,” says Anastasia Kudasheva, Development Director of the Save Ukraine charity foundation.
Photo: Fakty ICTV
She also told a story about how recently a woman who was on her way to pick up her godson and other children was not allowed to enter Russia by the FSB.
– The FSB interrogated this woman for three days. She said that it was simply psychological torture that they used against her. They came to the room where she was, asked the same questions, and this went on for three days. She was given food only on the second day,” says Kudasheva.
“Then she was sent by plane to Belarus, where she was interrogated for another two days.
– “When the woman arrived, she said, ‘Do whatever you want, dye my hair, change my name, I have to go back there and take my child,'” says the development director of the Save Ukraine charity.
At the same time, the boy, having learnt that he would not be taken away, called his grandmother and said that he did not want to return to Ukraine. That is when the Russians started their propaganda process.
– They promised him 3 million rubles for an apartment, that he would study in Moscow at an institute, but we know that this is not the case at all and it will turn out the other way. Because he’s about to turn 18, and he may go to serve in the Russian army. So we are now doing everything we can to find and authorise another person with all the necessary documents and bring him home,” says Kudasheva.
“Russia is in no hurry to return children to Ukraine, because behind every testimony of a child or parent is proof of a crime by the Kremlin.
– Every return of a child, every testimony of a parent is evidence against them, everything is pieced together and sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. And since we all know about the decision of the Hague Court to arrest Putin and Belova, they understand that they will be punished. The more children we return, the more chances there are that evil will be punished,” says Anastasia Kudasheva, Development Director of the Save Ukraine charity foundation.
Artem Mykolaychuk, a civil activist and member of the unrussiaUN initiative, believes that brainwashing children is another crime committed by Russia. In fact, such an attempt to propagate its own narratives to children is the militarisation of children.
– They destroy the consciousness of a normal person from childhood, just as Hitler did with the Hitler Youth. They are doing the same thing with the junior soldiers now: they hold class hours where they talk about the heroic deeds of Wagner’s PMC, for example, in Bakhmut, which we know that they burned people in basements, where they killed children on orders; they talk about it as heroic deeds. These are all cases of propaganda, but the worst thing is that it is aimed at children,” says Mykolaychuk.
As a reminder, as of today, 371 children have been returned to Ukraine from Russia and the temporarily occupied territories, as announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
According to the Ukrainian president, Russia has killed at least 483 Ukrainian children during the full-scale war against Ukraine. Almost a thousand more children have been maimed by the Russian occupiers.
