Ukraine war: Mother tricked into sending daughter to Russian ‘indoctrination’ camp reveals rescue and emotional reunion

Published

2 years ago

March 18, 2023

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Ukraine has been telling anyone who would listen for months that Russia had a formal state-sponsored plan to effectively steal Ukrainian children, take them to Russia and turn them against their own country.

The Ukrainian government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say the number of missing children in the last year alone is more than 16,000.

They say the Russian brainwashing programme dates back to the start of this conflict in 2014, and in that time more than 700,000 children have been illegally moved.

Some parents have grown so desperate, they are risking travelling thousands of miles from Ukraine through Poland, then Belarus and Russia to Crimea to get their children back.

In a hostel in Kyiv set up for refugees, I met Lyudmila Motychak and her 15-year-old daughter Anastasia.

Lyudmila had undertaken this harrowing journey, but she lit up when she showed me the emotional video of the pair reuniting outside a Russian children’s facility in Crimea, after months apart.

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Sceptical from the start, Lyudmila described how she was effectively tricked into letting her daughter go on a school trip, organised by the Russian-supporting authorities in Kherson and Crimea.

She said: “We were told that it will be a camp, and that the children were going there for two weeks, and they told us not to worry, that they would bring our children back, that a lot of children were going.

“I was afraid to let her go from the beginning. I was saying it’s a war, she shouldn’t go, but they insisted everything would be okay.

“They told me not to worry, everything will be okay. They said there is no war there, everything is good there, they will feed them five times a day and it’s good for her health, and that there is everything there, even a swimming pool.”

Two weeks later when her daughter didn’t return, Lyudmila realised something more sinister was at play.

“They told me it would be very good for my child, but there was nothing like that there, to tell the truth.”

Forced to sing Russia’s national anthem

Lyudmila described how she rang up the teachers, and the director of the educational college that her daughter attended. They kept telling her she would be returned at some point, but that the trip had turned into an evacuation because of the war.

Her daughter Anastasia, who goes by Nastya, told us that when she left Kherson, she departed on a convoy of 100 buses, each carrying 30 to 40 children. That’s more than 3,000 children on just one trip.

The opportunity was described to her as something like a “summer camp”, even though it was October.

But, she says, it was nothing like that.

She described how they were forced to sing Russia’s national anthem and follow strict orders.

“They said to us: ‘We are feeding you, we give you water, and we give you heating and comfort, and you’re so ungrateful.’

“They were confiscating balloons we had in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, and they were also shouting at us, saying: ‘We are ungrateful’, and to ‘go back to your fascists’.”

When two weeks passed, Nastya asked if she could go home, but the authorities were buying time.

She said: “They started delaying and telling us on this date… you will go back home, don’t worry.

“But we didn’t go when those dates came.

“Then they started telling us other dates, but we never left.

“Then they told us it was an evacuation, and then finally they said we have to stay indefinitely – and that only our parents can come get us out.”

With the help of Save Ukraine, a Ukrainian NGO that helps families travel to Russia and the occupied territories to get their children back, Lyudmila and Nastya were able to reunite.

‘Indoctrination of our children’

Lyudmila believes it was always the plan to take the children for good and then try to convince the parents to follow – and stay.

She said: “They took the children and then they wanted parents to join their children, and then they were promising money, and they were promising homes and apartments, financial help.

“Of course they wanted to people to adopt their way of thinking. They wanted people to join them and play by their rules.”

The Ukrainian authorities and Save Ukraine say this is all part of a detailed strategy Russia had to take Ukraine’s children.

Save Ukraine spokesperson Olga Yerokhina said: “We consider it re-education and indoctrination of our children, and when I think about those children who haven’t got any parents for different reasons, how will we find them at all.”

“We must look at this from the perspective of history. It’s nothing new and this whole thing was prepared. What do they do with children… it’s part of a bigger policy against Ukraine.”

I asked her if she thought it was part of a well-orchestrated plan.

She replied: “Yeah, we understand that it was not only about the full-scale invasion in 2022, it was prepared long before this.”

The exact number of children who have left Ukraine, or been forcibly removed, and may never be seen or heard from again, is unknown.

But the International Criminal Court (ICC) charges may one day bring someone involved to justice. That’s what Olga Yerokhina wants – some kind of concerted international plan and justice.

She said: “We have a lot of work to do.

“We hope the international community and Poland and the United Nations, that together we can create some kind of mechanism to return these children.

“We are realistic. Maybe we can’t do it for all of them, but we have to do as much as we can.”

World

Belgium announces it will recognise Palestinian state

Published

3 hours ago

September 2, 2025

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Belgium announces it will recognise Palestinian state

The Belgian government has said it will officially recognise the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly this month.

The country’s foreign minister, Maxime Prevot, announced it will join the UK, France, Canada, and Australia in recognising a Palestinian state.

Belgium will also introduce “firm sanctions” against the Israeli government, he said, including a ban on imports from West Bank settlements and possible judicial prosecutions.

The Israeli foreign ministry and its Belgian embassy have not yet commented on the announcement.

However, its foreign ministry previously said the UK’s plan to recognise Palestine “constitutes a reward for Hamas”.

Sir Keir Starmer announced in July that the UK would recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel meets certain conditions, those being:

• Israel takes substantive steps to end the “appalling situation in Gaza“

• Israel agrees to a ceasefire

• Israel commits to a long-term sustainable peace – reviving the prospect of a two-state solution

• Israel must allow the UN to restart the supply of aid

• There must be no annexations in the West Bank

In response, the Israeli foreign ministry said: “The shift in the British government’s position at this time, following the French move and internal political pressures, constitutes a reward for Hamas and harms efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of hostages.”

The UN General Assembly session in New York will begin on 9 September. Ireland, Spain, and Norway all officially recognised a Palestinian state last year.

Out of the 193 United Nations member states, 147 already recognise Palestine as a state as of March 2025.

Earlier this month, Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich announced plans to build a new settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which he said would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.

It comes after US secretary of state Marco Rubio revoked the visas of 81 delegates from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – blocking them from attending the general assembly.

Under a 1947 UN agreement, the US is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York.

But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.

The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is now more than 63,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

It added that nine more people, including three children, died of malnutrition and starvation over Monday, raising deaths from such causes to at least 348, including 127 children.

The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.

World

Afghanistan earthquake: A catastrophe compounded by Trump’s aid cuts

Published

3 hours ago

September 2, 2025

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Afghanistan earthquake: A catastrophe compounded by Trump's aid cuts

Earthquakes represent a constant danger in Afghanistan – a country which sits across three geological fault lines.

This most recent rupture near the city of Jalalabad – leaving more than 800 people dead – represents the third major quake in the past four years.

But the people of this impoverished nation are vulnerable in a number of ways.

The impact of foreign aid cuts

Since the Taliban took control in 2021, the international community has withdrawn much of the financial support which formed the bulk of government spending in Afghanistan.

Even humanitarian aid, which generally bypasses government institutions, has shrunk substantially – from $3.8bn (£2.8bn) in 2022 to $767m (£566.6m) this year.

The US government, through its international development arm USAID, provided 45% of all assistance granted to Afghanistan last year – but the Trump administration has slashed those sums.

The UK, along with France, Germany, Sweden, and others have also made deep cuts to humanitarian aid.

As a consequence, hundreds of hospitals and local health clinics in the country have been shut this year and related medical posts have been lost.

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This crisis comes as the country tries to absorb millions of people who fled when the Taliban took power. More than two million have come back this year, with Pakistan and Iran taking measures to force their return.

On arrival, they discover a country where more than half the population requires urgent humanitarian assistance, according to the UN – with millions suffering from acute food insecurity.

Large parts of northern Afghanistan have been stricken with the long-term drought.

A catastrophe compounded in a nation that ranks as one of the poorest – and most desperate – on Earth.

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More than 1,000 feared dead in Sudan landslide, rebel group says

Published

3 hours ago

September 2, 2025

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More than 1,000 feared dead in Sudan landslide, rebel group says

More than 1,000 people are feared dead after a landslide in a village in western Sudan, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM) has said.

The rebel group said only one survivor was found, and that the village in the Marrah Mountains area, in the Darfur region, was destroyed.

SLM leader Abdelwahid Mohamed Nour said in a statement that the landslide struck on Sunday, 31 August, after days of heavy rainfall.

He appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies for help in recovering the bodies.

The SLM controls the area located in the Darfur region in western Sudan.

Fleeing the civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), residents had sought shelter in the Marrah Mountains area, where food and medication are insufficient.

In January, the US determined that the RSF and its militias were committing genocide in Sudan.

The RSF rejected the claim and said: “America previously punished the great African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, which was wrong.”

The RSF has been fighting Sudan’s army for territorial control of the country since war erupted in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023.

The ensuing devastation has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis ever recorded – with over 11 million people forced out of their homes, tens of thousands dead, and 30 million in need of humanitarian assistance.

Minni Minnawi, leader of a faction of the group, said in March last year that 1,500 troops would support the Sudanese army in the civil war against the RSF, according to the Sudan Tribune.