Four children returned home from Russian-occupied parts of Kherson Oblast, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Nov. 15.
"Thanks to the efforts of the charity organization 'Save Ukraine,' the children are back," the governor reported via his official Telegram channel. "They are safe and receiving the necessary medical and psychological help to recover from what they've experienced under Russian occupation."
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Moscow has abducted Ukrainian children from occupied territories and forcibly transferred them within the occupied territories or to Russia itself. According to the Ukrainian government’s database, Russia has illegally abducted over 19,500 children since February 2022, and less than 390 have returned home thus far.
In a statement released on Nov. 15, Prokudin said the children who returned home include four boys, aged between 1.7 and 17. Prokudin said that since the beginning of 2024, at least 229 children from occupied parts of Kherson Oblast have been returned to Ukraine.
Taking hostage people who take no active part in hostilities breaches the Geneva Conventions and constitutes a war crime.
Around 1.5 million Ukrainian children who remain in occupied areas of Ukraine are at high risk of being deported to Russia, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Oct. 2. According to the Ombudsman's Office, those from children's homes in Kherson Oblast were first moved to the occupied territories and then deported to Russia.
The Kyiv IndependentKateryna Hodunova