As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.
As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.
Russia has rejected demands for the children to be returned, with an official accusing Ukraine of “staging a show on the topic of lost children” during ceasefire talks in Turkey this month.
Speaking to the Guardian, one mother has described her own dramatic rescue of her two teenage sons who were held in a camp in Russia for almost six months.
