Ukraine returns four more children from occupied parts of Kherson region

Another four children have been successfully reunited from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region. The group includes two boys and two girls aged between 3 and 17 years, according to the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin.

“A real New Year’s miracle! Four children have returned from the currently occupied left bank of Kherson region to the territory controlled by Ukraine,” Prokudin stated.

According to him, they managed to return two boys and two girls, aged 3 to 17.

He added that these children experienced unimaginable horrors – Russian terror, threats, and interrogations of their loved ones.

“The main thing is that these nightmares are now behind them. These children are now safe with their families, and they are receiving all necessary medical and psychological support,” Prokudin said.

The return of these children became possible through the efforts of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative and the work of the humanitarian organization Save Ukraine.

According to Prokudin, since the beginning of the year, 246 children from the Kherson region have been returned from the temporary Russian occupation.

Deportation of Ukrainian children

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russians have been deporting Ukrainian children en masse. They are taken to Belarus, Russia, and to the occupied Crimea.

According to the Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, since the beginning of the full-scale war, Russia has deported more than 19,500 children from Ukraine. More than a thousand young Ukrainians have been returned home.

It was the deportation of Ukrainian children that led the International Criminal Court in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova.