Ukraine has returned 11 children from Russia and the occupied territories

Ukraine managed to return 11 more children who were illegally taken to temporarily occupied territories or to Russia.

This was reported in the  Telegram channel of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets.

According to him, the operation to return the children took place as part of the Ukrainian President’s initiative Bring Kids Back UA.

The Office of the Ombudsman and international partners, including the State of Qatar, which acted as a mediator, were involved in its implementation.

"The youngest child we are returning is 10 years old, the oldest is 17 years old," – noted Lubinets.

He also shared several stories about the journeys of the children who managed to return.

One of them is a 13-year-old girl whose mother was captured by Russian forces and released in April 2023.

During all this time, the child was with her grandmother in the temporarily occupied part of Donetsk. The girl constantly sought a way to leave for her mother.

Thanks to the extensive work of human rights defenders and international partners, the family was reunited – this was their first meeting since the beginning of the full-scale war.

Another example is five children from the same family who were taken to Russia after the fighting began in their region.

The parents were deprived of their parental rights, and the guardian took the children out of Ukraine. For a long time, nothing was known about their whereabouts.

Later, the children themselves contacted their sister, who remained in Ukraine, expressing their desire to return. Now the whole family is together.

Ukraine continues to work on returning all illegally deported or displaced children. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, a total of 1,453 children have been returned home from occupied territories and Russia.