For three months, from August to November, Yuriy Lazechko fought against the Russian authorities to repatriate his 12 and 14 year old children to Ukraine. “They tried everything to prevent my children from leaving Russia,” he exclaims behind his computer camera. In interview at Duty, the 44-year-old father says he was hard hit by this Kafkaesque fight, which ultimately allowed him to be reunited with his daughter and son. “It was so exhausting,” he says. Each time there was one more obstacle. »
On June 3, 2021, several months before the start of the war in Ukraine, Yuriy’s wife, seriously ill, decided to leave Kiev to seek treatment with her family in Russia, in a small town in the Kursk region. . Yuriy’s children, Daryna and Zakhar, accompanied their mother. “I didn’t agree, since there were already tensions between the two countries,” recalls Yuriy.
On February 24, Russia militarily invaded Ukraine. Then, on August 26, Yuriy’s wife died of cancer. The next day, his brother-in-law calls him. “He said to me: ‘Since there is war in Ukraine, it is better for the children to stay here, in Russia.’ Yuriy replies that he is their father and that he wants his children to return to kyiv. “He was like, ‘OK, no problem, if that’s how you see it, come get the kids.’ Yet a law passed by the Ukrainian parliament in the aftermath of the Russian invasion prevents men from leaving the country — a widely known piece of information.
I was very moved when I was able to kiss them […] At times, I lost hope. I know how it works in Russia, and nothing was taken for granted.
On August 31, Yuriy receives a series of messages on WhatsApp from the guardianship department of the village of Shchigry, where his children are. The duty was able to view these messages. The interlocutor gives him two choices, “since you are not present on the territory”: place the children in an orphanage or give guardianship to the grandparents “to alleviate the wound” of the children. The lady puts a lot of pressure on the father to give guardianship to the grandparents, which Yuriy refuses to do.
In the following days, her daughter panics. “Please give guardianship, I don’t want to go to the orphanage”, “if they come to get us, forget me”, “I will never forgive you”, Daryna writes to him repeatedly. “There was tension everywhere,” recalls Yuriy. Distraught, the father turns to a group on Telegram which provides him with valuable advice. He also consults lawyers and notaries.
Determined to find his children, the man, who works in the banking sector, gathers all the necessary documents then, on October 24, he sends his 70-year-old mother to Russia – a two-day bus trip through the Poland and Belarus. Yuriy also convinces a cousin of his mother’s, a Crimean lawyer, to go to Kursk to help his mother in the process of getting the children back.
“Unknown reasons”
In Shtchigry, a meeting is then organized between the parties involved: the supervisory department of the city, the grandparents and the children. In a report of this meeting that The duty was able to consult, the authorities of Shtchigry deplore on several occasions that Yuriy did not come to see his children since the death of their mother. “The reasons for which he did not come are unknown”, stipulates the head of the supervisory department.
Three new documents are requested from Yuriy to get his children back: proof that the children will be properly housed, a document certifying that he cannot pick up his children himself and confirmation that the children will be admitted to a school where the teaching will be offered in Russian.
“I had to prove that I couldn’t leave the country,” Yuriy thunders. He also recalls that a law recently adopted in Ukraine makes teaching in Ukrainian compulsory. “It was insane [ce qu’ils me demandaient] “, underlines the man, who nevertheless managed to collect the requested documents. “The school told me that if it could save the children, they were willing to write that they were going to receive an education in Russian. »
Once the documents arrived safely – passing through several countries since the postal service is no longer offered between Russia and Ukraine – the authorities of Chtchigry refused to hand over the children to their paternal grandmother. Instead, she was told that another meeting would be held on an undetermined date. “I was desperate,” slips Yuriy. The man, out of breath, then decides to retain the services of another lawyer in Russia.
This does not go through the supervising department of Chtchigry, but goes directly to the Kursk regional authority. Another meeting is arranged. Again, state officials question the process and say it’s not safe to send children back to a country at war. But Yuriy’s lawyer retorts that custody of the children returns de facto to their father and that there is no law prohibiting children from being handed over to their parents because their country of residence is at war. An argument that makes its way. After the children confirm their wish to be with their father, and despite several other administrative maze, they are finally authorized to leave the country.
traumatized
On November 24, Yuriy was able to hug her daughter and son. “I was very moved when I was able to kiss them,” he recalls. “At times, I lost hope. I know how it works in Russia, and nothing was certain, ”he says, saying he prayed a lot for the return of his children. The man had to pay more than 7000 US dollars to find his children.
Aware of the battle being waged, Daryna and Zakhar were “traumatized” by the events, their father reports. “They needed psychological help. And after being exposed for more than a year to Russian propaganda, “they are a little brainwashed”, he laments.
Upon their return, the two teenagers were afraid to speak Russian in public, says Yuriy. “They were surprised to hear people at the grocery store speaking Russian, since in Russia people say that we are fascists and that we kill people who speak Russian. An idea that had made its way into their heads, Yuriy laments, even though his children had lived all their lives in Ukraine.
With Olena Bilyakova