On this video: The Ukrainian mothers journeying to Russia to get their children back – BBC News.
Ukraine has said more than 19,000 children have been removed to Russia, many from children’s homes and special schools in occupied areas. The BBC's Eastern Europe correspondent has found new evidence of how the children are treated and met some of the relatives who’ve had to make journeys to get them back.
Kurama
(Japan)
POETS STRANDED
‘Mordor’’s anthem.
Booms through loudspeakers.
And the tricolour flag.
Is unfurled.
But look a little closer.
And it's clear that.
None of the children's lips.
Are moving.
The camera operator.
Suddenly realizes that.
One girl has her hands.
Over her ears.
To block out the sound.
One girl has her hands.
Over her ears.
Too late, they zoom away from her.
The women were being helped.
By a group which stepped in.
When it emerged that hundreds of.
‘Elves’ children might be stranded.
Some were from broken homes.
Or less well-off families.
Struggling with the logistics.
And funding for the trip.
Other parents had been hesitant.
About returning their children.
To cities.
Under heavy ‘orcs’ fire.
The women continued.
The 24-hour drive south to Crimea.
As they drew close.
They stopped for a break.
And a 64-year-old took.
A couple of steps.
Collapsed, and died.
By the side of the road.
After days cramped-up.
In a minibus.
In a state of stress.
Her heart had given out.
Now the group which helped her.
Is trying to return.
Her ashes as well as.
Her granddaughter.
‘Mordor’’s anthem.
Booms through loudspeakers.
And the tricolour flag.
Is unfurled.
But look a little closer.
And it's clear that.
None of the children's lips.
Are moving.
The camera operator.
Suddenly realizes that.
One girl has her hands.
Over her ears.
To block out the sound.
One girl has her hands.
Over her ears.
Too late, they zoom away from her.
The women made their way.
To ‘Mordor’ to save their children.
The group returned.
31 children that day.
And several confirmed that.
Camp staff had threatened.
To place them in care.
Which had scared them.
They talked of being.
Taken on excursions.
At the start.
And being reasonably fed and clothed.
But on ‘orcs’-controlled territory.
They were treated.
And taught.
As ‘orcs’.
When inspectors visited from Moscow.
The ‘elves’ had to line up.
Beside the ‘orcs’ flag.
And sing the ‘orcs’ anthem.
In October.
The puppet of Kherson.
Posted a video on Telegram.
Of such a moment.
‘Mordor’’s anthem.
Booms through loudspeakers.
And the tricolour flag.
Is unfurled.
But look a little closer.
And it's clear that.
None of the children's lips.
Are moving.
The camera operator.
Suddenly realizes that.
One girl has her hands.
Over her ears.
To block out the sound.
One girl has her hands.
Over her ears.
Too late, they zoom away from her.
Source: https://www.koryu-meets-chess.info/
Ukraine war. The mothers going to get their children back from Russia. Sasha (right) told the BBC it was too distressing to talk about his separation from his mother — BBC News.
Kurama
(Japan)
POETS REUNITED AFTER MISSING FROM SCHOOL
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
The children who all.
Have special educational needs.
Were finally allowed.
To call home.
It was from much deeper.
Inside ‘orcs’-occupied territory.
Only eight of the children.
Have been returned from Perevalsk so far.
To get them back.
Their relatives were forced to make.
Gruelling journeys.
Across thousands of miles.
Into the country.
That has declared war on them.
Five still remain.
In ‘orcs’-controlled territory.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
He is a tall, shy boy.
With a long fringe that he likes.
To smooth into place.
Like any self-conscious teenager.
Forced separation from family.
Would be upsetting for any child.
For someone vulnerable, like him.
It was deeply unsettling.
His mother says he's still withdrawn.
Months after they were reunited.
The 15-year-old even has grey hairs.
From all the stress.
They're now living.
In the western German town.
Of Dinklage.
As refugees where.
After school.
He mainly lies.
On his bed.
Playing on his phone.
But he remembers.
Very clearly.
The moment when ‘orcs’ soldiers.
Took him away.
“If I'm honest, it was scary.”
He admits in his quiet voice.
Rubbing his hands back and forth.
On his thighs.
“I didn't know.
Where they would take us.”
When he’s asked about.
Missing his mum.
He pauses for a long time.
Says it's too distressing.
For him to remember.
And asks if he can change the subject.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
Before the war.
He went to.
Kupyansk Special School.
In north-eastern Ukraine.
He would board during the week.
Returning home at weekends.
But ‘Mordor’ invaded.
In February 2022.
Then much of the Kharkiv region.
Was overrun immediately.
And she kept her son.
Home for safety.
As September approached.
The puppet began insisting.
That all children return to school.
Now with the ‘orcs’ curriculum.
There was the same push.
In all occupied areas.
Often using teachers from ‘Mordor’ to replace.
Those locals who refused to collaborate.
She was reluctant.
To send her son back.
But the teenager was bored stiff.
After seven months in their village.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
So on 3 September.
She dropped him off in Kupyansk.
Days later, ‘elves’ forces launched.
Their lightning operation to re-take the region.
“We heard the noise from miles away.
The booms.
Then the helicopters and the firing.
It was a terrible din.”
“Then I saw the tanks.
And the ‘elves’ flag.”
She remembers.
Of the counter-offensive.
Unable to contact her son.
She was frantic.
“When we reached the school.
Only the caretaker was left.”
“He said the kids had been taken.
And no-one knew where.”
She went weeks not knowing.
What had become of her son.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
A teacher saw what happened that day.
When as many as 10.
Heavily armed ‘orcs’ soldiers.
“Swooped into” the school.
“They didn't care about taking.
Any documents or contacting parents.
They just shoved the kids in a bus.
With some refugees and left.”
‘Mordor’’s defence in such cases:
That it was removing children from danger.
But the teacher's view is.
“I lived under ‘orcs’ occupation.”
“And I know the difference.
Between what they say.
And what I see.
For myself through the window.”
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
For six weeks.
There was no word of the children.
“I cried every day.
Called the hotline.”
“And told them.
I'd lost my son.
And wrote to the police.
We tried to find him through volunteers.”
It was a full month.
Before a friend spotted.
A video on social media.
Dated early September 2022.
It reported that 13 children.
From Kupyansk Special School had been moved.
East to a similar facility in Svatove.
Still under ‘orcs’ control.
Another fortnight after that.
Her phone beeped with a message:
Her son was at a Special School in Perevalsk.
She read, and his mum could call to talk to him.
“He was happy to hear me, of course.
But he really cried.”
She recalls of the moment.
They spoke.
“They'd told him.
His home was destroyed.
And he'd been afraid.
We were gone too.”
Communication with areas.
Of heavy fighting is not easy.
But the Kupyansk children passed through three institutions.
Before anyone tried to reach any relatives.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
“There was nothing.
Only from Perevalsk.
And even then not immediately.
I think they did it on purpose.”
She would have to return.
Her son home in person.
But the direct route.
Crossed the frontline.
Instead, she travelled from Ukraine.
Through Poland and the Baltics.
Before crossing on foot.
Into ‘Mordor’.
Where the FSB Security Service.
Then interrogated.
Her about ‘elves’ troop movements.
She had nothing to tell.
“It was pitch dark.
There were checkpoints.
Men in balaclavas with guns.
I was so scared I took pills to calm me.”
She remembers of the rest of the trip.
Into occupied eastern Ukraine.
She had another reason.
To be frightened.
By then, ‘Mordor’ was.
Openly taking children.
From care homes in occupied areas.
And placing them with ‘orcs’ families.
By the time.
Her son disappeared from Kupyansk.
‘The One’ had already.
Amended the law.
To make it easier.
For ‘elves’ children.
To get ‘orcs’ citizenship.
And be adopted.
In late September ‘the One’ announced.
The annexation of four regions of Ukraine.
Including Luhansk.
Where her son was then located.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
“I was afraid.
That if they took my son.
Into ‘Mordor’.
I would never find him.”
“I was afraid.
He'd be put in.
A foster family.
Just like that.”
“What have our children got to do with anything?
Why did they do this to us?
Maybe it's just to cause us pain.
Like with everything else.”
So when she finally.
Reached Perevalsk.
After an exhausting five days.
On the road.
She hugged her son.
To her tightly.
Her son didn't say a word.
He was crying from happiness.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
In rural Germany.
Her son has had time.
To settle into life and.
Another new school.
But she is finding.
The adjustment a little harder.
In their flat.
Over a pile of sprat sandwiches.
She explains that.
Her eldest son is still in Ukraine.
Expecting to be called up.
To fight any day.
She wants nothing.
More than to go home.
To her husband, too.
But Kupyansk is under heavy fire again.
In late April.
‘Orcs’ missiles destroyed.
The local history museum.
Killing two women.
Before that.
Her son’s school in the city.
Was badly damaged.
When missiles landed nearby.
"Not only ‘the One’.
But all his main people.
All the commanders should be.
On trial for what they did to the kids.”
“What right did they have?
To take the children?
How were we supposed to get them back?
They just didn't care.”
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
On the website of her school.
In Perevalsk.
There is a large picture of.
The director staring out.
Bleached hair sitting.
On a strip of dark brown.
Like she's wearing.
A helmet.
The photographs of his classmate.
With a Z mark.
Are publicly displayed.
On the same site.
It was taken in February 2023.
A year after ‘Mordor’’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a class to mark.
Defenders of the Fatherland Day.
The lesson was dedicated.
To learning.
“Gratitude and respect”.
For ‘orcs’ soldiers.
When he studied the photograph.
Handed to him by ‘elves’ investigators.
He recognised his classmate dressed.
In ‘orcs’ military uniform immediately.
The teenager sitting at a school desk.
Has the Z-mark of.
‘Mordor’’s war emblazoned.
On his right sleeve.
Coloured in the red, white and blue.
Of the ‘orcs’ flag.
But he knew the boy’s name.
And the boy is an ‘elf’.
He has identified two more.
Of the missing children.
From Kupyansk.
Among the school pictures:
Both 12-year-olds are girls.
Dressed up and standing.
In line to celebrate.
The ‘orcs’ military.
Eight months after.
The 15-year-old and.
The other children.
Were taken from there.
Five still remain.
In ‘orcs’-controlled territory.
And the classmate was one of the last.
Collected by his mother just this spring.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
Source: https://www.koryu-meets-chess.info/
Kurama
(Japan)
POETS REUNITED AFTER GOING CAMP
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We'd been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
For six months.
She felt like.
Part of herself.
Was missing.
When she packed her 13-year-old son off.
To camp in Crimea.
She thought her son was heading.
For two weeks by the sea.
It was meant to be a break.
From the stress of war:
Other kids from Kherson had been.
To camp and come back.
So she wasn't worried.
Besides, their city.
Had been occupied.
Since the very start of the invasion.
And by October 2022.
She'd begun to think.
‘Mordor’ would control Kherson for good.
Though she didn't want that.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We'd been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
But days after she waved her son off.
The officials responsible for him.
Announced that.
The children would not return.
The ‘orcs’ had begun.
Retreating from Kherson.
If the children's parents wanted them back.
They were told they should come for them.
She pleaded with the puppet.
But was told they would.
Only return the children.
“When Kherson is ‘Mordor’’s again.”
She called the Prosecutor's Office.
In Crimea.
But they insisted she had to.
Get her son herself.
And so for weeks.
She reassured her son that.
She was coming for him.
Even as she tried to work out how.
The distance from Kherson.
To Yevpatoria is short.
But the direct route was closed.
By the ‘orcs’ military.
And a far longer route.
Through Zaporizhzhia was too dangerous.
“There was a less than 5% chance.
Of getting there and back safely,” she was told.
She would also need.
Around 500.
For a driver.
As well as her first ever passport.
And all the paperwork.
The ‘orcs’ were demanding.
To prove her link.
To her son.
She was already starting to despair.
When her son said officials at his camp.
Were threatening to place the children in care.
If their parents didn't hurry.
“The kids have been calling us.
In panic.
Saying that they don't want to.
End up in homes.”
She fretted.
“And ‘Mordor’ is huge!
Where would we?
Look for them then?”
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We'd been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
She finally set off.
In a train carriage.
Full of other mums and grandmothers.
On the most anxious journey of their lives.
The women were being helped.
By a group which stepped in.
When it emerged that hundreds of.
‘Elves’ children might be stranded.
But she couldn't wait.
Any longer.
“I still have this gnawing worry.
Something will go wrong.”
“It will be there.
Until I have my son.
Next to me.
Then I can breathe again.”
Over a week later.
She was one of the last.
To cross the border.
Back from Belarus.
Dragging a big suitcase.
Into Ukraine.
Past concrete boulders.
And anti-tank defences.
Her son, with his dimpled grin.
Was finally safe beside her.
There had been moments.
When she thought she wouldn't make it.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We'd been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
“They kept us like cattle.
Separate from anyone else.
Fourteen hours with no water.
No food, nothing.”
She described.
Being held by.
‘Mordor’’s FSB security service.
At a Moscow airport.
“They kept asking us.
What military equipment we had seen.
They checked our phones a million times.
And asked about all our relatives.”
The women continued.
The 24-hour drive south to Crimea.
Eventually.
She made it to the camp.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We'd been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
A few weeks after her return.
“Everything was finally over.
Once we made it here.”
She says cheerfully down the line.
She admits.
There was some bad feeling.
Towards the summer-camp mums.
At the start.
Seen as “collaborators”.
For sending their children.
To ‘orcs’-run facilities in the first place.
But she feels that has faded.
In her own family.
Her son is back.
To bickering with his younger brother.
And studying online, in ‘elves’ language.
But with no internet at home.
She has to dash into the city centre to hunt.
For wi-fi to download his schoolwork.
And that's risky.
Since the ‘orcs’ were forced into retreat.
Abandoning Kherson.
They've been taking their revenge.
On the city from across the river.
“They're shelling from morning to night.”
She confirms, though she says.
Their house is relatively far from ‘orcs’ positions.
They have no plans to leave.
Her son is still in a group chat.
With the other children from camp.
And most who remained.
Have now been collected.
But he says.
Five were transferred.
To a care home.
Somewhere in ‘Mordor’.
She shows a photograph.
Of their room.
With rows of single beds.
A cheap rug and a spider plant.
Where the left-behind children.
Go from there isn't clear.
The group returned.
31 children that day.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We'd been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
Source: https://www.koryu-meets-chess.info/
Please read the original story:
Ukraine war: Russia launches second pre-dawn missile attack in three days — BBC News
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(Kurama)
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Думки українських поетів про рідну країну, їхні відчуття до української землі і нашого народу — все це юні читачі зможуть знайти в представленій добірці віршів про Україну від Ганни Черінь, Юрка Шкрумеляка, Наталки Талиманчук, Іванни Савицької, Уляни Кравченко, Яни Яковенко, Василя Симоненка, Івана Франка, Володимира Сосюри, Катерини Перелісної, Богдана-Ігоря Антонича, Марійки Підгірянки, Миколи Чернявського, Володимира Сіренка, Іванни Блажкевич, Грицька Бойка, Миколи Вінграновського, Платона Воронька, Наталі Забіли, Анатолія Камінчука, Анатолія Качана, Володимира Коломійця, Тамари Коломієць, Ліни Костенко, Андрія Малишка, Андрія М’ястківського, Івана Неходи, Бориса Олійника, Дмитра Павличка, Максима Рильського, Вадима Скомаровського, Сосюра Володимир, Павла Тичини, Петра Осадчука, Варвари Гринько та інших відомих українських поетів.