Group of teenagers who survived Russian persecution brought back to Ukraine

A group of 17-year-old Ukrainian boys who survived Russian interrogations and searches have been brought back to Ukraine from occupied territory. 

Source: Bring Kids Back UA

Details: The teenagers are now in Ukrainian-controlled territory. One of them is 17-year-old Vladyslav, who was reported to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) for refusing to attend a Russian school. Afterwards, some Russian occupiers came to his home.

"His mother was summoned to the police station, where she was threatened with deprivation of parental rights unless her son started studying according to the Russian curriculum," human rights activists at Bring Kids Back UA reported.

Two other teenagers, Serhii and Mykyta, were interrogated by armed Russian soldiers. The boys were suspected of collaborating with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Their friend had been tortured to death during interrogations, and a close girlfriend of theirs was raped.

"Yaroslav also became a target because of his family: his father and brother serve in the Ukrainian military," the organisation says. "Occupiers broke into their home, searched it and threatened to kill them. Yaroslav tried to hide, but he was found and interrogated."

Another child who has been rescued from the occupied territories is Marusia, who was only six months old when the full-scale invasion began, so she has no memory of her hometown being part of Ukraine.

Quote from Bring Back Kids UA: "Marusia hardly remembers Ukraine in her hometown. But the little girl already knows what it means to be humiliated and beaten in kindergarten for speaking her native Ukrainian language, which her mother sang to her in lullabies. After being regularly bullied, the child developed a stutter, and now she needs help from a qualified specialist.

Fortunately Marusia, like the other children, is now safe and getting the support and help she needs." 

Background: Earlier, seven children aged 6 to 17, who had been living under the pressure of the Russian occupation administration with their families for a long time, were brought back to Ukraine from the temporarily occupied territories.

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