Ukrainian mum searches for her missing daughter after summer camp in Russia

From summer camp to orphanage in Russia. This is the strange and disturbing trajectory of Karina, a 13-year-old Ukrainian teenager. His mother, Natalia, has been without news for several weeks. This scenario seems to confirm kyiv’s fears: dhe thousands of Ukrainian children would have been transferred to Russia during the period of occupation, from March to mid-September, this is in any case what the Ukrainian government affirms.

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Natalia lived with her daughter in Kozacha Lopan, a village north of Kharkiv two kilometers from the Russian border recently liberated by the Ukrainian army. In this village, the war never really stopped. Since February 2022, the bombs have been raining down nonstop. So at the end of August, when the Russians who occupied the village offered Natalia to send her daughter to a summer camp in Russia, she said yes. “Russia promised that the children would be well fed, without war or bombing, that they would rest by the Black Sea”says the Ukrainian.

“They also offered to enroll our children in a boarding school so that they could continue their studies in Russia, but I refused that.”

Natalia, Ukrainian mother

at franceinfo

Karina was supposed to return in mid-September, but in the meantime there was the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the Russians fled. Parents followed them in an attempt to retrieve their children from the colony. This is the case of Natalia’s neighbor. She tracked down some of the children. They are in an orphanage in Russia. “I am in contact with my neighbour. She told me that there are three children in our village, including my Karina”, explains Natalia. The mother claims to have sent a power of attorney and a birth certificate to the Russians so that they hand over Karina to her neighbour. “They told me they wouldn’t let her go. But I want her back, I want her to be with me”says Natalia.

“I’m hoping Social Services or even Secret Service will help me get my child out of there to be home before the end of the year.”

Natalia, Ukrainian mother

at franceinfo

To get her daughter back, there is only one option, the Russians told her: Natalia must go get Karina in Russia. “They want me to go there but on the way back, they won’t let me or my child back in”, says Natalia. According to information from franceinfo, confirmed by two Ukrainian local elected officials, several parents have found their children in Russia. Some of these pro-Russian families have settled there, others are stuck on the other side of the border with no hope of returning to Ukraine.