Translated with AI
The psychologists at the "Voices of Children" foundation follow rules for meeting children who have escaped occupation and deportation: neutral colors in clothing, no jewelry, and a ban on physical contact and questions about home. The center's specialists also accompany children who have left the occupation or returned from Russia to their initial interviews with security services to make the process less traumatic.
In December 2024, a teenager, with the help of volunteers, escaped from the occupied part of the Luhansk region to his mother in Poland. He had to flee without a phone to avoid being tracked, avoid leaving his car unnecessarily, and avoid surveillance cameras at gas stations when using the restroom.
By the age of 14, the teenager had already experienced the death of two of his closest relatives: his best friend died from shrapnel wounds, and his grandmother died of cancer before his eyes. His interview, published by the Kyiv Independent, reveals the trauma and risks minors sometimes face in order to cross into Ukrainian-controlled territory and reunite with their parents. Psychologists from the "Voices of Children" foundation help these children and teenagers.
The evacuation of children from Ukraine to Russia is one of the most sensitive issues of the war. According to the Ukrainian website "Children of War," approximately 20,000 children have been illegally displaced or deported. Relatives, volunteers, human rights activists, and Ukrainian officials have so far managed to bring home approximately 1,500 of them.
Children and boundaries
Russian officials, especially Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, refer to the removal of children, their passportization, and placement with families as "evacuation" and "rescue." International law views this differently. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, suspected of illegally deporting Ukrainian children.
Lvova-Belova herself said she had adopted a teenager from Mariupol and posted his photos on her social media. But after the ICC warrant, information about the abducted children in the Russian public space has become much less widespread.
The evacuation of children began several days before the full-scale invasion. It occurred in several waves, and Ukrainian human rights activists identify several large groups with very different circumstances and fates.
The first mass group were orphans. They were initially evacuated from boarding schools in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and then, as Russia occupied new Ukrainian territories, from the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and other regions. Their exact number is unknown, but Russian authorities have estimated a figure of "up to 2,500." The children were granted Russian citizenship en masse. Later, at least 380 of them were placed in the care of Russian families.
The second group consists primarily of children from the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, who were evacuated during the occupation in August-October 2022 to recreational camps in the Krasnodar Krai and annexed Crimea. After the Ukrainian army liberated their hometowns and villages, Russia did not organize their return. Nevertheless, most of the children from the recreational camps were able to return home, although for some it took more than six months.
Another group are children separated from their families during military operations or whose parents were killed or missing. These cases are the least well-known, and their numbers cannot be determined from open sources.
Finally, another group are children from the occupied territories, both those separated from their parents or loved ones due to the circumstances of the war, and those living with their families but trying to escape from the occupation to territory controlled by Ukraine.
"There's a tendency for young men to leave some time before their 18th birthday to avoid facing military recruitment by the occupation forces," says Olga Erokhina, the foundation's leading media communications specialist.
According to human rights activist Daria Kasyanova, head of the Ukrainian Network for Children's Rights (a network of 39 human rights organizations), they are currently handling over 50 cases involving requests for the return of children. Increasingly, children and adolescents from the occupied territories are writing to request assistance. Moreover, over the three-plus years of the Great War, returning children to territories under Ukrainian control has become much more difficult. Organizing a journey from the occupied territories is especially challenging, even if the child has blood relatives waiting for them in Ukraine or Europe.
Darya Kasyanova cites the example of a situation where the grandmother of two sisters living in the occupied territory went to a school to warn them that the children would be leaving to live with their father and to request a certificate proving that they had attended school there.
"In the evening, a bunch of men with guns and uniforms burst into the apartment, ransack the apartment, take phones, take all the children's documents, and say, 'We'll be watching you, you don't have the right to go anywhere,'" the human rights activist says.
"While it used to take two weeks to plan and process all the paperwork, we now have cases that take us nine months to complete because the child's return is blocked by the occupation authorities, the children's original documents are taken away, and they are intimidated," Kasyanova explains in an interview with the BBC.
Some children leave after they have become legal adults—after reaching the age of majority, when parental or guardian consent is no longer required to travel to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
The stories of a girl whose parents fled to Russia a month after the full-scale invasion, and who waited until she reached adulthood to return to Kyiv-controlled territory on her own, and another who lived under occupation for ten years and was only able to leave at 18, were reported in March of this year by several Ukrainian media outlets. Both girls received assistance from psychologists from the "Voices of Children" foundation.
"The worst thing [one of the girls] describes is the experience of being interrogated by the FSB while crossing the border. When we meet with children in Kyiv, they often say this is the most traumatic experience," said Elena Rozvadovskaya, head of the foundation.
One of the FSB officers demanded that the girl sing the Russian anthem, even though she didn't know the words. She had to learn the words right there on her phone at the border. "Finally, after hours of coercion, she finally learned the words and started singing. One of the FSB officers sang along with her. But she made a mistake—both in the words and the melody. It turned out that the FSB officer didn't know the correct lyrics or melody either. The situation was absurd," Rozvadovskaya said .
"Even if there was no violence, the journey to Ukraine itself, with its checkpoints and border crossings, lengthy interrogations, and lengthy searches of phones and personal belongings, is an ordeal. The child arrives in a severe emotional state," explains psychologist Natalia Sosnovenko. "In one case, the child worked with a psychologist, then the family left for Europe, and the border crossing itself was triggered, sending him back into crisis mode."
Photo by Alexander Polegenko/TASS
"They are being told that Ukraine doesn't need them."
Psychologists from the "Voices of Children" foundation begin working within the first hours of a child's return as part of a multidisciplinary team in the office of Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubents. They also support the initial interview of the child with prosecutors and SBU officials who are documenting crimes committed against children. The foundation has been involved in this work since 2023, and its psychologists have supported 130 returned children.
Initially, the procedure was called an interrogation, but it was later renamed "interviewing" to avoid frightening associations. According to the foundation's psychologist, Natalia Sosnovenko, the main goal of interviewing is to avoid retraumatizing the child. Children themselves are unable to calculate and assess how a conversation will affect them.
Sosnovenko explains that there have been numerous cases where children have given interviews to investigators or journalists, and psychologists have subsequently had to deal with the consequences. In 2025, the foundation's specialists released a video course for journalists on how to ethically work with children who have experienced war ( available on YouTube in Ukrainian with English subtitles). Similar instructions were also created for law enforcement officers working with children.
The interview process begins with establishing an emotional connection with the child. It's not quick, taking anywhere from an hour to six hours. "If we psychologists see that the child isn't ready today, we suggest rescheduling the interview," says Sosnovenko.
According to the foundation's staff, all the children have experienced abuse, if not physical and sexual, then psychological and economic. Orphans were deceived into leaving, told that all the changes were temporary. Children stuck in holiday camps were moved from place to place—they didn't know where they would be taken, what would happen next, how long they would have to remain in Russia, and some didn't know whether they would ever return to their parents in Ukraine.
"I had to do things I didn't want to do. Film for TV, deal with Russian symbols, attend militarized clubs, even if they weren't interesting," Olga Erokhina lists. Under occupation, children live under constant pressure: they can't speak Ukrainian, they can't openly study online in Ukrainian schools, and they face searches and interrogations. Russian social workers, services, and psychologists may intimidate children before returning, threatening them with sanctions and punishment in Ukraine.
A separate issue is the forced militarization of children. According to Yale University, Russia has created a system of ideological re-education and military training for children from Ukraine, perhaps unprecedented in scale, in a wide variety of institutions—orphans' homes, schools, sanatoriums, recreation centers, and even a monastery.
In total, investigators identified 210 institutions where such indoctrination took place. At at least 39 of these facilities, children evacuated from Ukraine underwent military training—participating in parades and drills, assembling drones, and studying Russian military history.
The duration of such "re-education" can be short, lasting a few weeks during shifts at holiday camps, or ongoing, for example, in schools or clubs. "They are being told that Ukraine doesn't need them," Daria Gerasimchuk, the Ukrainian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, told the BBC.
All this causes "fear for one's life and safety; the child is under very strict constraints, under constant pressure, with no choice, unable to do what they want," explains psychologist Natalia Sosnovenko. Teenagers, whose need for control over their lives increases significantly, are particularly affected.
Sosnovenko worked with a boy placed under guardianship in Russia. He only managed to return to Ukraine on his fourth attempt, having been turned away at the border three times before. "Their worldview is completely shattered: forced displacement, new rules in the family where they were placed. Hopelessness, a lack of understanding of who and what they are, confusion. Children have a hard time grasping reality, and a feeling of guilt arises, as if something is wrong with them if this happened to them," the psychologist explains.
