Ukrainian authorities estimate that over 19,000 Ukrainian children have been illegally brought to Russian territory in the past year.
Yevhen Mezhevoi is one of thousands of Ukrainian parents whose children have been forcibly relocated to Russian-controlled territory over the past year. The forced relocations have led the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many of the abducted children are believed to have been given up for adoption to Russian families.
"My children are 6, 8 and 12 years old. Imagine how it feels if someone takes your child, says Yevhen Mezhevoi when SVT meets him outside Latvia's capital Riga.
Stopped by Russian soldiers
Between 2016 and 2019, Yevhen served in the Ukrainian army in western Ukraine. It was when the family tried to get out of the bombed-out city of Mariupol in April last year that they were stopped at a Russian checkpoint. He gave a mobile phone to his eldest son Matvii and urged him to try to keep up with the younger sisters Sviatoslava and Oleksandra.
The soldiers said that the interrogation would take half an hour, but while the father was taken to a prison camp, the children were sent to Russia. After six weeks, Yevhen was released from the prison camp. With the help of volunteers, he managed to make the dangerous journey to Russia.
Appeared in Russian propaganda film
In the camp outside Moscow, Matvii and his sisters were visited by Russia's Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, also wanted for war crimes. In a propaganda film, Belova hugs the smallest sister Oleksandra.
Yevhen knows that he was lucky to manage to save his children.
"You can't describe the joy when we met again," he told SVT.