Teenager from Kherson kidnapped by Russia commits suicide in Lukashenko's family

The media reports the death of 18-year-old Oleksandr Yakushchenko, who was taken to Russia after the occupation of Kherson region. The Ukrainian committed suicide in a foster home in the Krasnodar Territory.

This was reported by Suspilne.

The material reports that the teenager's body was found by workers a few kilometers from the foster parents' house. The head of the family, Alexander Lukashenko, said that he did not know the causes of the tragedy, because the boy was already an adult. Before his death, Alexander sent a voice message to his friends, in which he admitted that he felt superfluous and unwanted in his new family.

According to the publication, Oleksandr Yakushchenko, along with seven other children, lived in a family-type orphanage in the village of Tokarivka near Kherson. After the Russian occupation of the region, the head of the institution, Lidia Sharvarly, began to cooperate with the occupation administration. In the fall of 2022, she took the children to Russia, where she later relinquished custody of them.

After that, the children were placed in foster families in the Krasnodar Territory. Oleksandr was placed with the Lukashenko family, but after reaching the age of majority, he was left without support. According to friends, his foster parents took away his passport, which could have been one of the reasons for his suicide.

Earlier, Oleksandr told his friends that he planned to return to Ukraine to his mother, but was unable to fulfill this intention. His life ended on January 10, 2024.

According to Dmytro Lubinets , the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, there are about 1.5 million children in the temporarily occupied territories, all of whom are under the threat of deportation. He noted that Ukraine has managed to find information about 19,546 Ukrainian children deported by Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

In early December, three children were returned from the temporarily occupied left bank of the Kherson region. They were rescued thanks to the mission of the charitable organization Save Ukraine.

Recently, a program for the return and reintegration of children abducted by Russia, including orphans, was presented in Kherson. This program is being implemented as part of the presidential initiative Bring Kids Back UA.

Ірина Глухова