Ukraine manages to return 16 children from TOT in Kherson region

A group of children has been returned to the territory controlled by Ukraine from the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region.

The head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin reported this on his Telegram channel.

"Today these girls and boys are already safe in the government-controlled territory. Together with their families, they are receiving the necessary help and support, undergoing psychological rehabilitation and restoring their documents.

17-year-old Milana was waiting for her mother, who was kept in the basement for three days without food or water. The woman was tortured because the girl's father is a Ukrainian soldier. She underwent searches and a polygraph, and was threatened that she might be "found in Dnipro." Because of this, the daughter lived in constant fear that her mother would disappear forever.

Mark's story shows how the occupiers prey on teenagers. The boy went to class and ended up at the military registration and enlistment office. After a "psychological test," he and his classmates were taken away without his parents' permission to be registered for military service. The young man also almost became an orphan when a drone hit his parents' car, who survived only by a miracle.

On August 7, a new group of children was evacuated from the occupied Kherson region. The evacuees include orphans, children deprived of parental care, and those who have one or both parents. In particular, they include a 5-year-old boy who witnessed the death of his mother during a Russian drone attack; three children who had to leave their homes for a long time because of the threat of seizure; a 4-year-old girl and her mother who lived on a mined street.

Earlier, Ukraine Media Center presented an analytical study "Russia's Policy of Destroying the Identity of Children in the TOT of Ukraine: Results of 2024", according to which, as of October 2024, about 1.6 million children under the age of 18 live in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. According to the researchers, the largest number of children is in the occupied part of Donetsk region - 462,476. There are 310,227 in Luhansk region, 184,479 in Zaporizhzhia region, and 149,823 in Kherson region.

Катерина Глушко