THREE top Russian officials accused of orchestrating the mass kidnap of more than 200 Ukrainian children have been unmasked.
Moscow claimed it was staging an emergency evacuation from the Donetsk region – but new evidence revealed the deportation to was planned before the war had even erupted.
Olga Volkova, director of the ‘Donetsk Boarding School No. 1’, allegedly helped facilitate the deportationCredit: Ukraine Office of the Prosecutor General
Alexei Kulemzin, the Kremlin-proclaimed head of the administration of Donetsk, was part of organising the process according to investigatorsCredit: Ukraine Office of the Prosecutor General
A Russian TV report at the time showed children being ‘evacuated’Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk
Almost 20,000 youngsters have been rounded up and forcibly moved across the border to Russia since ordered his invasion four years ago, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Terrified children are put in sinister camps where Kremlin stooges try to rid them of their Ukrainian heritage and brainwash them into becoming Russian citizens.
Harrowing accounts shared by those rescued reveal some children are subjected to torture and starvation.
More than 80 per cent of abducted children still remain unaccounted for, with part of the shadowy operation involving youngsters having their documents altered before they’re sent to live with a Russian family.
Daria Zarivna, one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisers, previously told .
She warned Vladimir Putin’s thugs are indoctrinating these youngsters and those living in territory under control.
Among those being held as “pawns” are 213 children who were deported from the Donetsk region in February 2022.
More than four years on, three senior Russian officials have been exposed as those suspected of organising the shady operation from the occupied city.
They are Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-installed head of the administration of Donetsk; Miikhail Kushakov, minister of education and science; and Olga Volkova, director of the “Donetsk Boarding School No. 1”.
Footage from a Russian news report at the time showed dozens of nervous-looking children lining up clutching bags before being ushered onto buses.
Moscow tried to cover itself in glory by claiming it was rescuing these youngsters from imminent danger of “shelling by opponents”.
Standing in front of terrified youngsters, Volkova said: “We don’t leave children. We leave to save their lives.
“Still, we hope we will return home, because these are our walls, this is our land and we want to live in our dear Donetsk.”
Miikhail Kushakov also aided the process, the report claimsCredit: Ukraine Office of the Prosecutor General
Volkova, right, overseeing the children lining up before they boarded buses
Kulemzin – so-called head of the administration of Donestsk – help a child onto the busCredit: Not known, clear with picture desk
Volkova’s twisted remarks attempting to claim Donetsk as Russian land were echoed by Kulemzin – who even claimed the Ukrainian children as “ours”.
“It [the “evacuation”] will continue without stopping until we can secure the maximum number of our resident,” he said.
But evidence shows the deportation was planned well before the war started – and was not the sudden “life-saving” measure Russia made it out to be.
Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, announced the mass “evacuation” on February 18, 2022 – seven days before Putin launched his invasion.
Investigators from the Security Service of Ukraine found, however, that the video address had been recorded two days prior.
On February 16, Kushakov ordered the suspension of schools and Volkova prepared the documentation for the transfer of the children – approving lists of those to be taken out.
Two days later, Kulemzin – the so-called head of the administration of Donestsk – arrived at Boarding School No. 1, where he personally coordinated the removal of children.
Within hours, 213 children were packed up and sent to Russia’s Rostov
region. They have not been seen since.
Maksym Maksymov, Head of Projects at Bring Kids Back UA, told The Sun: “Once again we have evidence that the deportation of Ukrainian children was premeditated, as the deportations began before Feb 24, 2022.
“While Ukraine knows who these children are, we do not know what happens to them once Russia has taken them.
Snatched Ukrainian kids as young as 8 used as Russian slave labour
Exclusive by , Deputy Foreign Editor
UKRAINIAN children abducted during the war are forced to make military equipment used against their homeland, chilling research reveals.
Sickenlingly, satelitte images shows children being used as slave labour to assemble drones and other supplies fuelling the tyrant’s war machine in Ukraine.
Military training has been observed at around 40 of the sites holding children as young as eight, including ceremonial parades and drills, and combat training.
Since megalomaniac Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and sent to at least 210 facilities inside Russia and occupied territory.
These sites range from summer camps and sanatoriums to a military base, and, in one case, a monastery, according to research by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).
Russia is known to have engaged in the deportation, re-education, militarisation and forced adopting of Ukrainian children since at least 2014 from the occupied territories of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.
But since Putin ordered his troops in more than four years ago, researchers say these barbaric efforts have significantly expanded.
The HRL has used satellite imagery and open source materials to identify and track Ukrainian children snatched during the war.
Its horrifying report, Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization, reveals the staggering efforts Moscow goes to to brainwash these youngsters.
Children have been rounded up and moved to at least eight different location types.
These are cadet schools, a military base, medical facilities, a religious site, secondary schools and universities, a hotel, family support centers and orphanages, and camps and sanatoriums.
At least two new cadet schools have been constructed, and at least 49 of the 210 locations have been expanded since the start of the war.
Children are forced to develop “fire and naval training skills” at some sites as part of a warped militarisation campaign.
They are required to participate in “shooting competitions and grenade throwing competitions” as well as receive “tactical medicine, drone control and tactics” training.
“Russia provides no information, often changes the identity of Ukrainian children, and forcibly imposes Russian citizenship and places them, either for adoption or in Russian state institutions, making it hard for them to be found or to know how they have been treated.
“Everyday Ukraine, together with its international partners, works to locate these children and collect evidence of Russia’s crimes to ensure those that are responsible are held accountable for their actions.”
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, established by the UN, has recognised the mass deportation as a war crime.
Kulemzin, Kushakov, and Volkova have now been issued notices of suspicion in absentia by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
This adds to more than 20 already handed down to those suspected of being behind these abductions.
As of last month, Ukraine’s ministry of justice has confirmed 19,915 cases of deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The Sun previously spoke to .
Nastya, then 15, was abducted from by Putin’s fighters at the beginning of the war in March 2022.
The terrified teenager was placed with a woman who also had ten other children in her care.
She told how she was abused and beat her until she was sent back to the police station where she had originally been held.
Pictures show children inside Russian ‘re-education’ camps in a bid to rid them of their Ukrainian heritageCredit: Bring Kids Back Ukraine
Children are forced to speak and write Russian as well as sing the national anthem every dayCredit: Bring Kids Back Ukraine
Nastya was then enrolled in a college, where she said she was routinely humiliated by soldiers who told her: “You are nothing.”
Eventually, Nastya was able to find a phone and make a call to her mother, who tracked down volunteers in Ukraine to help get her home.
It comes as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded Russian authorities “at the highest level” have been involved in the sick process.
The damning new report said Putin’s “direct involvement” has been “visible from the outset”.
Three years ago, arrest warrants for Putin and his children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova were issued by the International Criminal Court.
Russia attempted to denounce the warrants as “outrageous and unacceptable”.
Lvova-Belova has portrayed the forced deportation of Ukrainian children as a Russian rescue mission since being appointed Putin’s children’s commissioner in 2021.
She adopted at least 18 children and also five biological kids with her husband, a Russian Orthodox priest.
Footage previously emerged of Lvova-Belova during a meeting with Putin.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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