Ukrainian brings her ‘kidnapped’ daughter home from Russia

There came a time when Lyudmila Kozyr thought she would
never see her daughter again. Taken to Russia as fighting engulfed her village
in the northeast of Ukraine, Veronika, 13, was just one of thousands of
children who were removed from their families by the occupying Russian
authorities.
Like many other children, the Russians refused to send her
back when her village was recaptured by Ukrainian forces. But determined to
find her daughter, Kozyr ventured into the heart of the beast and took a bus to
Russia, wondering if she would ever return.
“We were totally lost,” she said. “We had no idea where to
even start to get our children back. I thought I’d never see my daughter again.
We were scared that we wouldn’t be able to leave Russia but there was no other
choice.”
Since the start of the war, 13,613 children have been
identified as taken out of Ukraine by Russia, according to the Kyiv government.
Just 122 have been returned. The whereabouts of many remain unknown.
Many have been adopted into Russian families according to
Ukrainian, western and United Nations officials. Critics have described this process
as a deliberate depopulation campaign.
Many children were separated from their families as they
fled the fighting in cities like Mariupol. Others were offered holidays, like
Veronika.
Some were taken directly from orphanages and boarding
schools “for their own safety” on the grounds that they were already separated
from their parents.
Natalya Vasilyevna Shvereva, 59, a teacher at a boarding
school for children with learning disabilities in the town of Kupiansk,
described how a group of Russian soldiers entered on September 8 with guns and
balaclavas covering their faces. They abducted 13 pupils aged between 6 and 16,
announcing that a new military law had been enacted and children in an active
conflict zone had to be evacuated across the nearby border.
“What could I say to
these threatening men with weapons?” Shvereva said. There was no mobile phone
connection to call for help, or even check what the soldiers had told her with
the occupation authorities.
The school was almost empty, but 13 students had returned to
school just a few days earlier. Shvereva, a teacher at the school since 1991,
was responsible for them.
“These children come from low-income households where
parents are struggling to look after them and feed them,” she said. “It’s a
state school, so their parents knew that if they came to the school someone
would take care of them and provide meals for them.”
Wherever the children have gone, they are still there. Two
days later, the city was liberated by Ukrainian forces, but the children did
not return. By then, in her village of Nechvolodivka seven miles from Kupiansk,
Kozyr was working out what to do about her own missing child.
The offer of a holiday for Veronika and 250 other children
the month before had sounded tempting, even coming from the Russians.
“The Russian
authorities told us the children could have a break at a holiday camp near the
sea,” Kozyr, 49, told The Times. “Other children from the area had been for
short stints and come back so we thought it would be safe.”
It had been a tough time, under occupation in a poor area of
the country. “People with money and cars left early on, but we had no money and
nowhere to go so we stayed,” Kozyr said.
“The Russians told us the Ukrainian forces had forgotten
about us, that they weren’t coming. So when these trips started happening in
the summer I thought it would be a nice break for my daughter. In fact, she
pushed me to let her go.”
But as fighting intensified, parents were told the trip “had
been extended” and after the village was freed in mid-September, the Russians
told her that if she wanted to see her daughter again, she would have to come
in person to collect her.
For many parents, this was a huge demand. Some had never
been to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city just 70 miles away, let alone
abroad. However, an NGO, Save Ukraine, stepped in with advice and help with
passports and transport.
The 14 mothers who agreed to go travelled west, to the
Polish border, then to Belarus and on to Russia. They knew the children were
being held in the Black Sea coastal city of Anapa: less than 350 miles away as
the crow flies, but in a time of war it turned out to be a gruelling 11-day bus
ride.
“We were really scared that we wouldn’t be able to leave
Russia but there was no other choice,” Kozyr said. “Standing in front of the
entrance to the camp waiting to see my daughter, I had this feeling of dread in
the pit of my stomach that they would tell me she wasn’t there. I was in tears
as I waited.
“But when I saw her —
I don’t even know how to describe the feeling. We just hugged and kissed and
cried together. I was so happy she was in front of me.”
The group brought 21 children home in time for Christmas.
For Veronika, it was the end of an ordeal that had begun happily, but was
becoming increasingly frightening.
“The camp leaders were young and very kind to us,” she told
The Times. “We played sports and had competitions. We practised dance routines
and we were rehearsing for a New Year’s Eve production.
“But two weeks was enough to be away from my family. I was
really missing my mum and dad — even my brother.”
She had no idea what was happening at home. “The longer I
was stuck at the camp the more worried I became about my family,” she said.
“When I found out my mum was going to come and collect me I
thought it would take just a few days. Travelling home with her along the same
route made me realise how far she had travelled. I’m really proud of her for
coming to get me.”
Despite everything, Kozyr believes the trip organisers had
the children’s best interests in mind, but Myroslava Kharchenko, head of Save
Ukraine’s legal department, is sceptical.
“By making it so that
mothers had to come and collect their children, the Russians knew many would
not be able to,” she said. “We had zero guarantees, it was a huge risk, but it
was either take the risk or allow the children to remain in Russia.”
This was the second group of children the organisation has
helped return home. Now its focus is on finding missing children from the
newly-liberated Kherson region, where more than 1,000 children are understood
to have been taken from schools and orphanages.
Kharchenko worries time may be running out. “Our
understanding is that children have been told by the Russian authorities that
they will stay at the camp until the new year,” she said. “Now we’re very
worried that after this time, these children will be adopted.”