children torn from their families and taken to Russia

On the images of a Russian channel on Telegram, we see little Ukrainian orphans welcomed in Moscow, Russia, like kings. In any case, this is the official Russian version. In fact, many Ukrainian parents have died of worry after their children have disappeared. Olena lost track of her son, wounded in a bombardment and taken away by the Russians. “I was at least trying to find out if my son was alive. They told me nothing. It was only the day after he was transferred to Moscow that the Russians told me that they had been able to operate on him.“

“We didn’t even have the right to say goodbye”

Oleksandr is one of the rare children to have been able to return to Ukraine. He was in hospital with his mother in Mariupol when the Russians arrived. “We were loaded into trucks and taken to filtration camps. My mother was interrogated, they said that she had not passed the selection process and that I would be taken from her. We didn’t even have the right to say goodbye“, he says. The Russians then promised him a new family.