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SNATCHED from their homes, Ukrainian children are piled onto Putin's presidential planes bound for Russia.
It marks the start of a chilling journey that will see everything they have ever known wiped from their memory.
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Forced into sinister camps, they are starved, tortured and "brainwashed" into becoming Russian citizens.
Some snatched youngsters are also forced to take part in the Kremlin's military organisations and train with weapons.
It's part of Putin’s sick scheme to create a new generation of fighters for his dwindling army.
Ukraine now believes nearly 20,000 children have been deported to Russia and forced to start new lives in the homes of strangers since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022.
A chilling new report followed 314 Ukrainian children as they were placed in Russia's systematic programme of coerced adoption.
In harrowing detail, it reveals the journey these vulnerable children were forced to take as part of Russia's bid to strip them of their Ukrainian identity.
Damning new evidence shows it was Putin who ordered and facilitated the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
Experts now fear time is running out to bring thousands of youngsters home.
This is the story of Ukraine’s lost children.
The sick deportation of Ukrainian children started with the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
The programme was founded by Putin’s celeb doctor Elizaveta Glinka - known in Russia as Doctor Liza, pictured below - who was accused of abducting children by the Ukrainian government.
She was believed to be behind the first transfer of children from Donetsk to Russia in December 2014 and 500 more in the following two years.
Described by Russians as a “saint”, Glinka asked Putin to change the law to allow the relocation of Ukrainian children on "medical grounds".
Glinka died on Christmas Day in 2016 days after receiving a "human rights" award from Putin - killed in a helicopter crash en route to Syria to deliver medical supplies.
Now, it’s thought the Kremlin’s Children’s Rights commissioner Maria Lavova-Belova - pictured below with Putin - is using a similar illegal deportation system.
When Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia was already "systematically" transporting children across the border just days before, according to The Yale School of Public Health.
Around 500 children were allegedly deported from Donetsk and placed in new foster families in what Russia claimed was a bid to "evacuate and rehabilitate".
The child pictured below was taken from an institution in Donetsk in 2022 and was listed on Russia's databases.
Other children were also taken under the guise of "summer camps" to escape the shelling - with Russia promising parents the youngsters would return home.
Tatyana Glagola was one of the parents who "thought she was doing the right thing".
Her nine-year-old daughter Polina is still missing.
At the camps, children are forced to speak and write Russian and sing the national anthem every day.
So far Ukraine believes nearly 20,000 children have been deported - with 555 feared dead and 1,429 left injured.
Now, a new report by The Yale School of Public Health has shed more light on Russia’s sinster child adoption practices.
It followed 314 Ukrainian children who were snatched from Russia-occupied Ukraine.
It revealed the journey the children were forced to take before being fostered, adopted or placed under guardianship in Russia.
And Putin himself was highly involved in the sick scheme, evidence showed.
It also suggested the Kremlin had made attempts to cover its tracks during the adoption process - by changing the child’s identity and location and even amending its laws to change their citizenship.
The disturbing process - "internationally and directly authorised by Putin and senior officials" - began with children from four groups:
- Children separated from their families in filtration facilities after the siege of Mariupol in 2022
- Children taken into custody of the Russian military
- Children taken from Ukraine’s institutes and facilities
- Children from occupied areas sent to camps for re-education
While held in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, many were subjected to starvation and torture and forced to renounce their Ukrainian heritage.
They were told their families no longer wanted them and were forced to speak Russian and sing the national anthem daily being beaten if they refused.
Harrowing survivors' testimony reveals how Ukrainian children have been left confused and isolated:
Masha* was taken from an orphanage in Luhansk and placed with citizens of Russia in October 2022. They reported that Masha is bereft at having been separated from her friends and now prefers to be left alone
Gleb* was taken alongside 233 other children from a boarding school in Donetsk in February 2022 and placed with a citizens of Russia. According to Gleb, he was told that his placement would be temporary. Gleb said that he used to dream of returning to Ukraine.
According to Lyubov’s* foster parent, Lyubov only learned that she had been permanently placed with a citizens of Russia after her arrival in their home. She had thought that she would be returned to Ukraine after she temporarily stayed with citizens of Russia and was shocked to find out that she would be living with them until she came of age.
Satellite images show a "camp" where children were allegedly held.
From there, they were illegally transported across the border using government assets from Russia’s Aerospace Forces and Putin’s presidential plane, according to the Yale report.
Images show Lvova-Belova accompanying 125 children on the flight from Donetsk to Moscow in September 2022.
And satellite images apparently show Putin's presidential aircraft at Rostov-On-Don North Airbase being used to transport children in May 2022.
From there, the children are taken to “temporary accommodation centres” - midpoints in Russia where they are added to one of three child placement databases.
When added to the database, the children are listed as being from Russian territories in a bid to conceal their true identity and make it appear as if they had been born there, the Yale report claims.
Russia has refused to register the children with the Government of Ukraine or the Red Cross - which is a requirement under the Geneva Convention.
The report also suggested Russian officials concealed or changed open-source information to track the child’s whereabouts - such as social media posts and articles - and changed details in the database to make children harder to trace.
From the "temporary accommodation centres", the children are placed with new families or placed in educational institutions where they will be naturalised as Russian citizens.
At one ceremony, Ukrainian children received Russian citizenship from Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov - with Lvova-Belova present.
The child are given new documents, with their names tweaked or changed, making them difficult to trace.
Families can apply for adoption or guardianship if the minor is under 14 and trusteeship for those aged 14 to 18.
In a sick attempt to legitimise the adoption programme, Russia is using psychologists to match the child with prospective parents.
Youngsters underwent medical examinations at the hands of Russian professionals in preparation for being placed with their new families, the report states.
Federal guidance to the doctors even acknowledged that they should work with the children’s anxiety "in a situation of forced stay".
They played the children's introductory videos of their new potential families, organised online meetings and carried out testing of an “unknown nature”.
The 314 children were taken to at least 21 regions - and around 80 percent of them were taken from the Donestk region of occupied-Ukraine.
Around 67 of those children have been naturalised as Russian citizens.
But the number is thought to be much higher.
Nearly half of the children had brothers and sisters, and there was at least one case where siblings had been separated during the adoption process.
At least 208 of the 314 children have been placed with citizens of Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
Putin even amended federal law to simplify the process of changing a child’s citizenship.
He also granted powers to pro-Russian authorities in annexed territories to apply for citizenship on behalf of the child.
Lvova-Belova and Anna Kuznetsova, the former Child’s Rights commissioner, were key individuals in the programme, along with the heads of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic, the Ministry of Education among others.
Lvova-Belova is seen pictured below with her husband Pavel and her biological children.
At least three children in the report were placed with the families of Russia’s officials or Russia’s military forces.
Lvova-Belova "adopted" a Ukrainian child from the war-ravaged city of Mariupol - thanking Putin for giving her another child to raise.
She's seen beaming with 17-year-old Filipp Golovnya.
Experts told The Sun that they are now in a race against time to get the lost children of Ukraine home before they are lost in Putin's evil system for good.
Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, told The Sun:
The law in Russia once a child is either adopted or under guard allows those parents to change the name of the child, to change identifiable information about the child and fundamentally there is real concern that children that have been adopted could have entirely different identities
The onus is on Russia now to identify all the children from Ukraine that are in the database and we are dealing with a situation where every day that goes by the chance of these children will be returned gets lower and lower because Russia has more and more time to obfuscate their identities. This entire programme was fundamentally based on deception.
The Yale report has now been handed to the United Nations Security Council in the hopes that more charges could be brought against Putin and his ring of sick child-snatchers.
Oona Hathaway, a professor at Yale Law School who was involved in the study, believes the evidence will form a basis for potential crimes against humanity, war crimes and a case of genocide.
She told The Sun:
There's an extensive set of clear violations of international criminal law that are documented here
Daria Zarivnan, an adviser to the Ukrainian government and chief operation officer at Bring Kids Back UA, said the report reveals a higher levels of crime by Putin's cronies.
She told The Sun:
The meeting of the UNSC is an opportunity for global scrutiny and accountability for Russia’s war crimes in a way that hasn’t previously been possible
As noted, the report reveals a higher level of crime than previously understood, which could support further charges under the Rome Statue
Children have protected status in war, and this protected status is being eroded grievously through forced deportations by Russia and policy of coerced adoptions
This report provides irrefutable evidence which contradicts Russian denials and misinformation about their handling of Ukrainian children
We hope all parties in the meeting recognise the violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes taking place by Russia
Russia must immediately provide Ukraine and the international community with a complete list and detailed information about all Ukrainian children who have been subjected to unlawful deportation, followed by adoption and guardianship arrangements with Russian citizens
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