Ukrainian-born Oleksandr Yakushchenko, 18, who was deported from the Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast in 2022, was discovered lifeless after allegedly committing suicide on Jan. 10, 2024 close to his foster dwelling in Russia.
His suicide virtually a yr in the past was first reported by IStories investigative venture on Dec. 24. There have been no stories about investigations into Yakushchenko's Russian foster household, the place a minimum of one different Ukrainian boy at the moment lives.
In keeping with IStories, earlier than the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, Yakushchenko lived in a family-type orphanage within the village of Tokarivka close to Kherson, run by Lidia Sharvarly.
After the occupation of the village early into the invasion, Sharvarly turned a collaborator with the Russian authorities. When the Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated Kherson in November 2022, she fled to Russia, illegally taking a number of kids along with her.
Yakushchenko was amongst a minimum of 20,000 Ukrainian kids which have been kidnapped from Russian-occupied territories and despatched to different Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine or to Russia itself, in response to a Ukrainian nationwide database "Youngsters of Conflict."
In Russia, Sharvarly refused custody of youngsters, and Yakushchenko was positioned in a Russian foster household of Natalia and Alexander Lukashenko in Krasnodar Krai.
Eight months later, he dedicated suicide.
The household denied their accountability for the teenager's suicide since he was legally an grownup on the time of his loss of life.
“He was simply staying with us. We gave him meals, nicely, you may't kick a man out. He had nowhere to go,” mentioned his Russian foster father Alexander Lukashenko.
A media report says that Yakushchenko informed his mom in Ukraine about his plans to go to her a month earlier than he died, however his foster household might need taken away his ID to forestall him from touring to Ukraine, in response to his buddies.
The boy's organic mom, Olena Yakushchenko, who lives in Khmelnytskyi Oblast of Ukraine, doesn’t consider that her son determined to commit suicide.
“I don’t consider that he hanged himself. I talked to him, he was comfortable. What might have occurred in per week or two?” says the younger man's mom.
The teenager's youthful sister, Khrystyna, was additionally deported to Russia and at the moment lives with a foster household there. Her mom doesn't know what occurred to her.
The Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets estimates that Russia has unlawfully deported as much as 150,000 Ukrainian kids, whereas different officers put the determine at 200,000–300,000.
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