Alla Yatsnyuk, a Ukrainian woman, boarded a plane to Moscow, Russia via a third country this spring to find her son (13). As soon as she arrived at the Moscow airport, Ms. Yatsnyuk came under intense scrutiny by agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB/KGB’s successor). She asked questions about whether there were any soldiers in her family and what weapons she saw in Ukraine. Agents also confiscated and examined his cell phone. During the 14 hours they were confined to the airport, neither food nor water was provided. “They (Russian agents) separated us and treated us like animals,” Yatsunyuk told the BBC.
Yatsunyuk, who lives in Kherson, Ukraine, said goodbye to his son Danilo last October. The trouble was that he sent his son, who was tired of the war that started in February of last year, to a summer camp in Crimea. When the Russian army, which occupied Kherson, just above the Crimean Peninsula at the time, was pushed back by Ukraine, the camp actually detained his son, saying, “We can only return the child if Russia recaptures Kherson.”
Mr. Yatsunyuk asked the Crimean Prosecutor’s Office to return the children, but they only said, “Come and take them by yourself.” In the end, Mr. Yatsunyuk, along with other parents who had lost their children after being sent to camp, headed to the Crimea where his son was. It has been about six months since my son went to camp.
He got out of the Moscow airport, crammed into a small bus for 24 hours and headed for Crimea. A 64-year-old woman who was riding the bus with her to find her granddaughter got off the bus and collapsed on the road to her death.
It was only a week after leaving Kherson’s house that Mr. Yatsunyuk finally met his son. “Seeing his son come running towards me in tears, I could have endured everything I had to go through,” he told the BBC. Thirty-one other children were also rescued that day. The children said they were trembling with anxiety after hearing from the camp staff, “If your parents don’t pick you up quickly, we’ll send them all to an orphanage.”
Children being sent to Russia without their parents knowing are happening all over Ukraine. In September of last year, 13 students were forcibly taken by Russian soldiers who were retreating from a special school in the Kupyak region of northeastern Ukraine. Parents searched social media for six weeks and found pictures of their children on the website of a school in Svatobe, a Russian-occupied area in Ukraine, and finally brought them back. Five of them are said to have not yet returned.
An estimated 19,000 children have been forcibly displaced since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The BBC said, “The children who were taken away had to stand in front of the Russian flag and sing the Russian national anthem. Children have become targets of Russian patriotic education.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.