Taken, beaten down and taught to hate their kin, two youth plotted their escape from Russia. But freedom is not the end of their story.
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Ukraine’s government estimates that at least 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly brought to Russia and occupied areas since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022.
That figure covers cases where there are indications of deportation or forced transfer. Children taken to Russia by their own parents, or who live under occupation, are not captured in the number, but are offered the same support when they return to Ukraine.
An estimated 1.6 million children are living under occupation, forced to attend so-called summer camps and study a Russian curriculum that glorifies its military and bans Ukrainian content. Many are eventually drafted and trained to fight against their own country.
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The ODIHR report [ODHR stands for Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, an organization at Organization for Security and Co-operation OSCE] said Russia has orchestrated an elaborate system that suppresses dissent and uses education as “an instrument of State security and identity transformation.” Researchers identified what they described as “probable war crimes,” including “torture and inhuman treatments, causing great suffering to children, and unlawful deportation and transfer of children.”
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Experts say the accounts of children who made it home are the best way to understand what is happening to the generation of Ukrainian kids under occupation ... Getting even one child home is a herculean task.
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Denys [a Ukrainian teenager who was forcibly transferred to Russia at the age of 17] remembered days of incessant indoctrination. Russian films, Russian songs, Russian history, Russian culture and the patriotic class called “Conversations about Important Things,” which was full of more propaganda. They were told nothing about what was happening outside the camp’s walls ... He remembers them saying that they had rescued him, and threatening to take him to the forest and beat him to death. They told him: “No one will try to find you, because you are an orphan. You have no one.”
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Ukrainian human-rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk agreed, describing all Ukrainian children under occupation as “a new generation” of soldiers for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The indoctrination can be successful, she said.
Ms. Matviichuk, chair of the Center for Civil Liberties organization, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, said many people think about war crimes as perpetrated by political or military officials. But the teachers and social workers who support the system must also be held accountable, she said.
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In occupied areas, Ukrainian parents are presented with impossible choices, too, [Save Ukraine President Mykola] Kuleba said.
Russian soldiers enter their homes and tell them that if they don’t accept Russian citizenship, and if they don’t send their children to school, their parental rights will be terminated. Mothers are told their children will be ripped from their arms and brought to orphanages.
In areas where there is more violence, many also feel forced to make bigger decisions about their safety.
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Like Denys, Alina [an Ukrainian teenager who came to Russia when she was 15] found herself experiencing attempted indoctrination. In the fall of 2022, she moved into a dormitory at a vocational school, where she would stay for about seven months before returning to live with her mother.
Every Monday, students raised the Russian flag outside their school before attending the same class Denys was forced to take, called “Conversations about Important Things.”
In one class, she said, students were shown a picture of a dead pig covered in a Ukrainian flag. Another time, the lecturer told students that Ukraine was bombing its own people. Alina spoke up and said she had seen the direction the missiles were flying with her own eyes. She was suddenly moved to the corridor, where the teacher told her if she said anything like that again, she and her mom would have criminal cases opened against them.
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Three times a week, Alina and her classmates were made to weave camouflage military nets for Russian troops to use in front-line areas. Alina said the teacher told her that if they didn’t make nets, there would be consequences.
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Alina said she was also required to attend a class focused on protecting Russia, where her teacher called the students cadets. She and her classmates were taught tactical medicine and how to hold, load and reload an automatic machine gun. There were competitions where children would be rewarded for loading their gun the fastest, she recalled. They were taught how to shoot, with cans set up in the basement for practice.
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Most young people who return to Ukraine do so with the support of the Ukrainian government and non-governmental organizations. The majority re-enter the country through a humanitarian corridor between Ukraine and Belarus.
According to Bring Kids Back, a Ukrainian presidential initiative, more than 2,600 children have been returned as of September, 2026. The ODIHR’s recent report said Qatar is the most “operationally significant diplomatic actor,” acting as an intermediary to facilitate the return of 87 children. The ODIHR said the Vatican and an initiative led by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump have also provided support.
Save Ukraine has had the most success. As of September, the organization had helped around 1,763 of the children return. Mr. Kuleba said that every day, the group is working on more than 100 cases, which includes communication with kids and family members and arranging documents, accommodation and transportation. The specifics are kept confidential.
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The path out is complex, however, and not everyone returns the same way.
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Like Denys, Alina took action after she turned 18 and had more freedom of movement. She left school and got a job at a bar, saving up money for a flight out of the country. She decided to plot her journey via Turkey, telling her mother that she wanted to go there to earn money.
Shortly after arriving, she sought help from volunteers to get a Ukrainian passport. With that in hand, she travelled to Moldova and from there caught a bus to western Ukraine, before ultimately arriving in Kyiv. It had been four years since she had left.
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Since the beginning of the full-scale war, significant infrastructure has sprung up in Ukraine to support young people on their way back and after their return.
The government’s Coordination Center for Family Upbringing and Child Care Development co-ordinates with NGOs and international partners. The institution and the Child Rights Protection Centre are both notified when children are on their way back.
Case managers, along with psychologists, interview the children. Then law enforcement services conduct their own assessments to document alleged crimes that happened in the occupied territories. The Coordination Centre develops individual plans for each child depending on their needs.
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Denys and Alina have different stories but find themselves in similar circumstances, having battled similar demons, the same ones that hundreds of children torn from their homes are now wrestling with upon return to a country that is still at war.
Both live in apartment blocks reserved for people who have returned from Russia or occupied territories, where psychologists and other support staff are available on site.
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