kyiv, Ukraine.- A group of 31 children have returned to Ukraine after being smuggled to Russia from Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russian army, a charity organization said Saturday.
“Today we welcome another 31 children, who had been illegally transferred to Russia from the occupied territories,” said Mykola Kuleba, head of the Save Ukraine association.
These children lived in the Kharkov (northeast) and Kherson (south) regions, occupied by the Russian Army a year ago and liberated by Ukrainian troops last fall, said this state association, which fights what it considers illegal deportations of minors. .
According to Save Ukraine, this group of children arrived on Friday in Ukrainian territories controlled by kyiv.
Images provided by the organization show that they crossed the border on foot and then took a bus to continue their journey.
Kuleba praised the “heroic mothers” who traveled to Russian or Russian-controlled territories to recover their children in one of the “most difficult” missions of this charitable association.
During that trip, an elderly woman who wanted to get two of her grandchildren back died from “stress,” Kuleba explained.
According to the head of the association, the Ukrainian mothers were “interrogated for 13 hours” by agents of the Russian secret services.
Ukraine claims that more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the Russian invasion began on February 24 last year.
Moscow denies these accusations and says that the children were transferred to Russian territories so that they would be safe from the horrors of war.
