A Ukrainian 18-year-old has said she felt “despair and hopelessness” during her eight-month quest to reunite with her 11-year-old brother after both of them were sent to Russia 🔴 ClaireGilbodyD reports
Ksenia Koldin, 18, went on a quest to find her brother, 11, after both were sent to Russia last year A Ukrainian 18-year-old has said she felt “despair and hopelessness” during her eight-month quest to reunite with her 11-year-old brother after both of them were sent toKsenia Koldin and her brother Serhiy had been living in a foster home in the city of Vovchansk, Kharkiv, whenWhile their foster mother treated them “really well at first”, Ksenia says that after she turned 18 that July, she was...
By autumn, the teenager says, their foster carer had been swayed by Russian propaganda, which claimed it was safer for children to move to Russia or Russian-occupied territories to protect them from the brutal reality of war. Ksenia said ‘it hurt’ that she had to persuade her ‘brainwashed’ brother Serhiy to return with her to Ukraine to bring them deeper into Russia,” Ksenia toldIn September 2022, Ksenia was sent to a college in the Shebekino town of Belgorod, and her brother 1,000 kilometres away in a “summer camp” in the town of Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai.
She began a desperate search to find Serhiy, and was finally reunited with him this May. But she said her younger sibling had been “brainwashed” by his pro-Kremlin foster carers, and “it hurt” that she had to “persuade” him to return to Ukraine with her. “At first it felt like we were strangers. But we’ve overcome this challenge and I am happy it is now behind us,” she added.Russian authorities said on Sunday that 700,000 children have been taken to Russia from conflict areas in Ukraine. Moscow claims this programme is aimed at protecting orphans or children abandoned in the war, but Kyiv says it could amount to illegal deportation, and the US has said thousands have been forcibly removed from their homes.
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