Children deported to Russia to raise them as Russians
.
This was reported by the Associated Press
agency
, in a long and documented investigation that starts from the story of
Olga Lopatkina
, a Ukrainian mother of six adopted children who, on the day of the invasion, were on vacation in the colony in
Mariupol
.
Thousands of children were found, in the absence of adults
, in the basements of besieged cities.
Some had lost their parents in the bombing, others were already living in orphanages before the invasion.
Moscow claims that those who were led across the border had no parents or legal guardians,
or that they could not be reached.
But
Ap,
thanks to dozens of interviews and exclusive documents,
discovered cases where they were
taken away without consent
and telling them
that their parents no longer wanted them.
Russian law prohibits the adoption of foreign children.
But in May,
Putin signed a decree making it easier for Russians to adopt and give citizenship to Ukrainian children
without parental care and more difficult for Ukrainians to regain parental responsibility.
The Federation pays up to a thousand dollars for every family that adopts a Ukrainian child
, organizes summer camps, "patriotic education" courses.
Moscow portrays these adoptions as acts of generosity, state media show local officials hugging and kissing them and handing them Russian passports.
While in her home in
Vuhledar
, in the Kiev-controlled part of the Donetsk region, Lopatkina, with no news of her children from Mariupol, worried about what to do, the childhood of her seventeen-year-old son
Timofey
ended abruptly.
Suddenly,
he had become the father of all her brothers.
Three had chronic illnesses or disabilities, and the youngest was only 7 years old.
Under the bombs, they had taken refuge in a basement.
Every day he would wake up at 6am in the bitter cold and chop wood to light a fire and cook something.
Days later, a doctor from Mariupol organized an evacuation to free Ukraine.
But at a checkpoint
the separatists refused to recognize the
children's photocopied documents, detained them and took them to a hospital in occupied territory in the Donetsk region.
Timofey was only a few months away from coming of age: by the time he turned 18,
he would be forcibly enlisted to fight with the occupiers
.
He managed to contact his mother, but was furious when he learned that he was already abroad with Rada, his 18-year-old biological daughter.
With her husband Denys, Olga Lopatkina had long awaited her adopted children in Zaporozhzhia, but when the evacuation of the city was ordered, she had decided to leave for France.
Timofey accused her of having abandoned them, she was hurt but not surprised: "I can't even imagine, if I had been him I would have reacted the same way, and maybe even worse".
Lopatkina continued to
put pressure on Russian and Ukrainian officials
, sending copies of documents attesting to her protection.
The children
appeared on Russian television,
saying that their mother did not love them.
She broke her heart.
Meanwhile, in the pro-Russian-controlled hospital, the children discovered that they would not be allowed to go home.
A court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic allegedly deprived Lopatkina and her husband of her guardianship
.
The little ones would go first to an orphanage, then to new families in Russia.
Timofey would go to school in Donetsk.
This story has a happy ending.
Thanks to the intermediation of an NGO, SOS Children's Villages,
after two months of negotiations
the boys were able to leave on a bus that, through Russia and Latvia, would take them to Berlin.
At the Russian border they were interrogated for a long time and feared that they would be sent back, but they were finally allowed to continue.
In Berlin their father was waiting for them at a bus stop, he drove them to France where they were reunited with their mother and sister.
Timofey was able to forgive the parents he had felt abandoned by.
AP Photo / Jeremias Gonzalez
The family reunited in Loue, western France, on Saturday 2 July 2022
But the events similar to those of this family are many.
Starting in
2014
, after the self-proclamation of the Luhansk People's Republic, where
80 children were stopped and taken to Russia
.
Kiev appealed to the European Court of Human Rights and the children brought back to Ukraine.
Instead, some 30 Crimean children who were forcibly adopted by the Russians in 2015
could be among the soldiers fighting against Ukrainian forces
.
This year, compared
to 96 minors repatriated to Ukraine
, there would be
thousands deported to Russia
.
Eight thousand, according to Ukrainian sources.
Kira, a 12-year-old girl who saw her father being shot and killed, was evacuated from Mariupol to Donetsk with shrapnel wounds on her ear, leg, neck and arm.
Kira was reunited with her grandparents only thanks to the intervention of the office of the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister.
Conversely, the
Associated Press
also collected
stories of minors who willingly accepted the transfer
and adoption in Russia.
Three children accused their biological parents of abandoning them in a bunker in Mariupol.
They were found by Russian soldiers, have now been adopted by a Russian family and have become citizens of the Federation.
They have a new house with a courtyard and inflatable pool, they say they felt welcome and accepted.
The 15-year-old girl is looking forward to starting a new life in Russia, also because it is impossible to go back to the old one.
Her school was bombed, one of her classmates died and almost everyone left.