Russia’s open effort to adopt Ukrainian children and bring them up as Russian is already well underway, in one of the most explosive issues of the war, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Olga Lopatkina paced around her basement in circles like a trapped animal. For more than a week, the Ukrainian mother had heard nothing from her six adopted childrenThe kids had spent their vacation at a resort in the port city, as usual. But this time war with Russia had broken out, and her little ones — always terrified of the dark — were abandoned in a besieged city with no light and no hope. All they had now was her oldest son, Timofey, who was still himself just 17.
The investigation is the most extensive to date on the grab of Ukrainian orphans, and the first to follow the process all the way to those already growing up in Russia. The AP drew from dozens of interviews with parents, children and officials in both Ukraine and Russia; emails and letters; Russian documents and Russian state media.
Russia also has prepared a register of suitable Russian families for Ukrainian children, and pays them for each child who gets citizenship — up to $1,000 for those with disabilities. It holds summer camps for Ukrainian orphans, offers “patriotic education” classes and even runs a hotline to pair Russian families with children from Donbas.
In March, Russian children’s rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova said 1,000 children from Ukraine were in Russia. Over the summer, she said 120 Russian families had applied for guardianship, and more than 130 Ukrainian children had received Russian citizenship. Many more have come since, including a batch of 234 in early October.
Suddenly, Timofey had become the father to all his siblings. Three had chronic illnesses or disabilities, and the youngest was just 7. “When you walk and see brains of people on the road, right on the pavement, nothing matters,” he recalled. Instead, the children ended up in a hospital in the Donetsk People’s Republic, or DPR, a separatist Russian-controlled area in Ukraine. Timofey was only months away from turning 18 — the age when he would be drafted into the DPR army against his homeland.
In 2014, after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, more than 80 children from Luhansk were stopped at checkpoints and abducted. Ukraine sued, and the European Court of Human Rights found the children were taken into Russia “without medical support or the necessary paperwork.” The children were returned to Ukraine before a final decision.
Kira, a 12-year-old girl who saw her father shot and killed, was evacuated from Mariupol to Donetsk with shrapnel wounds on her ear, leg, neck and arm. Kiraonly after the office of the Ukraine deputy prime minister got involved. Other officials in occupied territories loyal to Moscow have a more benign view of what Russia is doing. Olga Volkova, who heads an institution for children in Donetsk, had 225 kids evacuated to an area near the Russian seaside city of Taganrog, and 10 were taken in by Russian families in April. After DPR and Russian officials make a list of suitable candidates, her boarding school secures citizenship for them and sends them to new families in Russia.
Lopatkina took in two refugee families from a city near Mariupol, who confirmed her worst fears. One woman said her husband was killed in front of her, and she had to step over his corpse. “I can’t even imagine,” she said, her voice breaking as she started to cry. “If I were him, I would have reacted the same way, and maybe even worse.”
“We still have love untapped,” she said. “There are children who need to be given affection, love, care, family, mom and dad. If we can give it, why not?” After a guardianship trial in now-occupied Mariupol, the Russian mother has custody of the children. They have become Russian citizens and call her mom, she said.At her house with a courtyard and inflatable swimming pool, the children said they felt welcome and accepted. The 15-year-old girl is eager to start a new life in Russia — but in part because returning to her old one is impossible. Her school was bombed, one of her classmates died and almost everyone has left.
“I’m going to Moscow, I’ve already seen the family and everyone,” she said. “I liked the mom from the very beginning.”In the DPR, Timofey didn’t want a new life — he wanted his old one back. Angry and miserable, he argued with officials and ate almost nothing. The little children repeatedly asked when they could go home to their mother. They were badly fed, slapped and cursed, Timofey said.
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