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Ukrainian children from the Kharkiv region arrive at a detention center in Belgorod, Russia.
Samuel Schumacher (text) and Yven Semyakjin (video)
Russians fled the Donbass city of occupied Izium after a Ukrainian lightning strike—and they took something with them: children.
«A week ago, Russian soldiers kidnapped 80 of our children and sent them to a camp in Gelendzhik (Editorial Note: a city in southern Russia),” says Izium mayor Valery Marchenko, on the first day after the liberation of his city. “It is impossible to bring him back from there.”
Ukrainian journalist and translator Yevgen Semykjin, 36, with whom Blick works in Ukraine, met in front of the heavily damaged Izium city hall a day after the city’s liberation from Marchenko. Semykjin was one of the first foreigners to visit Izium after the Russian occupiers had fled and was able to speak with the survivors of the Russian terror on the spot. For a full month, Putin’s troops occupied the city, which once had a population of less than 50,000.
Kidnapped and placed for adoption in Siberia
It remains to be seen what crimes the Russians committed against the local population during their occupation, says Mayor Valery Marchenko. “Several cases of kidnapping have come to the fore. Many people disappeared, many were tortured.” She was thrown into a dungeon, raped and beaten. “Many of those tortured who survived this ordeal later killed themselves Because they couldn’t stand it anymore.” But some survived and are now being treated in hospitals. “You’ll be able to testify against the perpetrators later,” Mayer hopes.
But there is little hope for abducted children. What the Russians did to the kidnapped minors became clear early in the Ukraine war. According to Ukrainian sources, Putin’s army kidnapped more than 1,000 children from the city of Mariupol alone and put them up for adoption in Siberia. In August Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, 41, said another 300 children were being held in a “special camp” in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar. Moscow did not respond to a call from the Ukrainian government to bring the children back to Ukraine immediately.
bunch for brainwashers
Blick translator Yevgen Semykjin found documents during his journey to free Iseum showing what the Russians were planning to do with the remaining offspring in Izeum: “I went to the town hall and found a document there which listed in detail That’s how Russian first graders wanted to be brainwashed by the new school year,” Semekjin says. According to documents available to Blick, 23 Russian schools should have opened in Izium by the start of the new school year this fall. A certain amount was to be paid to parents who voluntarily sent their children to Russian propaganda schools.
Izyum mayor Valery Marchenko says: “Preparations were in full swing. They removed all Ukrainian books from our schools and replaced them with Russian literature. But now your efforts will not work.”
Many refugees who wanted to return to the Free City – despite all the destruction – had already contacted him and his staff. First, the military must now properly secure the area, Marchenko says. “But here the commander of the Ukrainian troops told me that we can start returning in a week.” How many residents of the city are still alive and how many have disappeared forever, it will be clear only later.
