UKRAINE’S First Lady has urged global leaders to help bring home more than 20,000 of her country’s children who were stolen by Russia’s war machine.
In a world-exclusive interview, said of the conflict, now in its fifth year: “I dream about it ending soon. We want to win for the sake of our children.”
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska says more than 20,000 of her country’s children were stolen by Russia Credit: Dan Charity / Newsgroup Newspapers Ltd
Mrs Zelenska – pictured here with husband President Volodymyr Zelensky – says Ukraine is in danger of losing an entire generation to war Credit: AFP
But she insisted there can be no peace until every child snatched by ’s forces is freed.
Speaking from the fortified Presidential headquarters in , Mrs Zelenska — who married Ukraine’s President in 2003 — told The Sun: “Our children are our future.
“If not for them, who will we fight this victory for?”
Mrs Zelenska also warned was in danger of losing an entire generation to war following the .
She said: “It is the worst period of my life.
“I think that every Ukrainian can agree with me.
“I do not know if anyone can tell you that he or she is an absolutely happy person now.
“Even if your life is full of wonderful events, even if the war has not touched you personally, we all live under the same gloomy sky, with the pressure of the fact that we are living in a war.”
As for whether world leaders are doing enough, she simply replied: “If they had done enough, the war would be over.”
According to the Ukrainian government more than 20,000 children have since the invasion began.
They were taken from the streets by Russian troops , rounded up at hospitals and hand-picked from children’s homes in occupied regions.
All were given new identities, many were forced into militarised “re- education” camps and some were adopted by Russian families.
Mrs Zelenska, 48, raised the , who was just ten months old when she was taken from a children’s home in the port city of Kherson in 2022 and later adopted by Putin ally Sergey Mironov.
She said: “They came and chose her, like choosing a pet in a pet shop.
“Margarita is not aware of where she was born.
“She may never find out about her homeland or her past.”
Margarita’s name was switched to Marina Sergeyevna Mironova and her place of birth altered to Podolsk, a city outside , where she is being raised by 73- year-old politician Mironov.
Mrs Zelenska revealed how warped Russian negotiators even offered to include 300 children in a prisoner of war exchange Credit: Alamy
Russia refuses to respond to queries from Ukraine, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Tracing Agency Credit: AP
Meanwhile Margarita’s brother and sister are waiting for her back in .
She is one of 20,610 documented cases of children abducted by since the invasion began, according to Bring Kids Back UA, Mr Zelensky’s initiative to secure the children’s return.
So far, only 2,274 have come home — and the true scale of Russia’s secretive state-sponsored kidnap campaign is believed to be much higher.
The children are indoctrinated at 200 facilities across , including remote areas of Siberia.
In time, the aim is to conscript them into the to fight against their own country.
Mrs Zelenska said: “It’s normal for people from a democratic country like Britain to understand what are.
“But Russia does not care about the or human rights.
“They act as they see fit.
“Children in [occupied Ukrainian city] Mariupol were taken off the streets, to hospitals, to boarding .
“It was done without any agreement from the Ukrainian side.
“We still can’t get information from Russia about the children who were taken away.
“Their location is hidden.
“There is no access for the international organisations to the places where the children are kept.”
Mrs Zelenska exclusively revealed how warped even offered to include 300 children in a prisoner of war exchange.
The extraordinary offer came during talks in Istanbul after Ukraine submitted a list of named children they wanted freed.
She said: “We know exactly where they are in Russia.
“One of the Russian proposals was to cancel any serious talks on this topic.
“The next proposal was to include these children in the list of prisoners of war for the next exchange.
“This was not done.
“They say that they really consider the children they have kidnapped to be their prisoners.
“We could not believe it, but it is so.”
Softly-spoken Mrs Zelenska, mother to daughter Oleksandra, 21, and son Kyrylo, 13, said it proved Russia truly “believes that the children they have kidnapped are their prisoners”.
She added: “The Ukrainian prosecution has opened a case against 22 Russians who supported the deportation of children.
“Their names are known.
“These aren’t just war crimes, they are crimes against humanity.
“Everyone who is guilty of the fact that our children were held under the power of the Russians must be punished.”
TAKEN THEN GIVEN NEW ID
UKRAINIAN infant Margarita Prokopenko was ten months old when she was abducted by the wife-to-be of one of Vladimir Putin’s political henchmen.
The child had been separated from her family in Kherson within months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and was being cared for at a children’s home.
Inna Varlamova, soon to become the fifth wife of 73-year-old Russian politician Sergey Mironov, was touring Ukrainian children’s homes in August that year.
She selected Margarita and used local collaborators to draft letters permitting her to take the child into Russia.
Margarita was adopted by Mironov, and her name, place and date of birth was changed in official documents.
A birth certificate records her name as Marina Sergeyevna Mironova and her birth place as Podolsk, outside Moscow.
Her brother and sister remain in Ukraine, where their legal guardian, Darina Repina, has spent the last four years searching for Margarita and appealing to world leaders for help.
She has even written letters for Margarita to read one day.
One reads: “Hello, Margarita.
“We’re waiting for you.
“We’re so glad the moment has come when you’re reading these words.
“We hope so much that this moment will come soon.
“We will never let you go.”
But at present it seems likely Margarita will grow up without ever knowing she is Ukrainian or that she was snatched by those who claim to care for her.
But Mrs Zelenska conceded that finding the missing children is almost impossible.
Once in Russia their names are changed, birth dates altered, new identity documents issued and their location kept secret.
Russia refuses to respond to queries from Ukraine, the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Tracing Agency.
But for Mrs Zelenska, the return of all the children kidnapped by Russia must be part of any peace deal, and she said: “It is impossible without it.”
face an uphill battle to readjust to life.
Mrs Zelenska’s own foundation has set up psychological rehabilitation camps across Ukraine to support them.
Millions more children in Ukraine have grown up amid a relentless bombardment from Russian and long-range missiles, living in a constant state of tension and taught in underground schools to keep them safe from air strikes.
Mrs Zelenska said: “Our children see how their neighbours and friends die. Our children take part in the funerals of their classmates.
“Besides the fact that it is unfair, we should not allow the next generation of Ukrainian children to be called the children of war.”
In 2023 the indicted Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his children’s commissioner, for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.
A UN commission said in March that it had identified 1,205 cases of children being taken from Ukrainian territories by Moscow in 2022.
Putin claimed the children were being “rescued” from a war zone.
FORCED INTO PUTIN ARMY
Bohdan Yermokhin was snatched by Russian troops in 2022 and taken to a camp in Moscow Credit: Dan Charity / Newsgroup Newspapers Ltd
KIDNAPPED Ukrainian teenager Bogdan Yermokhin was ordered to report to a draft centre in Moscow on his 18th birthday – to sign up and fight against the country of his birth.
Bogdan, who was orphaned in 2014, was living with a foster family in his home city of Mariupol in Ukraine when Russia launched its illegal invasion. The director of the tech college where he was studying was appointed his legal guardian.
But in 2022 Russian troops snatched him as they seized control of the city.
Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova said Bogdan was among Ukrainian children “found in cellars” by the Russian invaders.
He was first taken to the city of Donetsk in Russian-occupied Ukraine and later to a youth summer camp in the Moscow region with 30 other Ukrainian children.
He was eventually placed in the care of a foster family and given Russian documents – including his call-up papers.
Brave Bogdan tried to return to Ukraine in March 2023 but was stopped by Russian border guards and returned.
Children’s commissioner Lvova-Belova – indicted by the International Criminal Court for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children in 2023 – said: “We caught him on the border with Belarus. We managed to stop him at the last minute.”
But after huge international pressure – including a demand for his return by President Zelensky – Bogdan was sent back to Ukraine in November 2023.
- Additional reporting: OLENA MAKARENKO
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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