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A BRAVE Ukrainian teen saved her brother from Vladimir Putin’s child snatchers after he was illegally adopted by a “brainwashing” Russian family.
Ksenia, then 18, and Serhii Koldin, from Kharkiv, were separated after she was forced to attend a Russian school and he was sent to one of Putin’s sick "zombie" child camps in Krasnodar.
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Young Ksenia was able to make her way home from the occupied territory but vowed to take the perilous journey into Russia and not return without her brother.
After five weeks inside the camp, Serhii was sent to a “brainwashing” pro-Russian foster family who refused all contact with his loving sister.
Ksenia cannot reveal the details of her secret mission to save Serhii but says she is thrilled to have him home for Christmas.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Ksenia said: "I’m so happy that we came back because I really wanted to return to Ukraine while I was in Russia.
"I even made a firm promise to myself that I would only return to Ukraine with him[Serhii] because a brother or sister is the closest person in our lives.
“I believe no matter how old we get they should be by our side…with a life like this, you never know if there will be a tomorrow if you’ll even wake up tomorrow.
Shocking reports and accounts of Putin’s sinister child camps have amounted to an arrest warrant being issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Vlad and his evil child snatcher chief Maria Lvova-Belova.
The pair are wanted for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children into Russia - attempting to brainwash them, rid them of their Ukrainian identity and handing them Russian citizenship.
They are then placed with pro-Russian foster families amid fears they may never be found or return home.
Damning new evidence showed it was Putin who ordered and facilitated the illegal deportation of these children.
Haunting journey of Ukraine's lost kids snatched by Kremlin & bundled onto Vlad's presidential planes to ‘zombie’ camps
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 war in 2022.
The siblings, originally from Kharkiv, became separated when their village was occupied by Putin’s forces in 2022.
Ksenia, now 20, was forced to attend a Russian school in Vovchansk while Serhii was sent “summer camp” nearby.
She said: "The war started, there was constant shelling and knowing we had nowhere to hide only made our fear grow stronger…but later even more terrifying events followed.
"In the summer we heard children could supposedly go to "summer camps" in Russia for two weeks.
"I already knew something was off because why send children away, especially during a war and especially to a place like Vovchansk.”
The Ukrainian town of Vovchansk, close to the Russian border, was under Putin's control until it was liberated in September 2022.
Ksenia says she feared that the border would close and that her brother would be lost forever but no one listened to her concerns and he was sent away by their foster mum.
She said: "Instead of two weeks, my brother stayed in the camp for five weeks after which he was taken in by a Russian family."
He was given Russian citizenship and the border was closed meaning it would be nearly impossible to get Serhii back - but she never up hope.
She said: "I was very worried about this because this family were pro-Russian. That I wouldn’t be able to get him back.”
Her younger brother said the camp had parties and everyone seemed happy - but Ksenia believes it was a "show" to make it seem as though the children were being well looked after.
She says he was bribed with sweets as well as being “brainwashed” by his new family - to the point that he refused to return home.
Having been forced to attend a school in the Russian-occupied town of Vovchansk, Ksenia managed to escape deportation herself.
She was told that she could not stay at the school because of the fierce shelling and said she could go to one of two Russian towns across the border.
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Russian authorities even tried to force her to change her passport and give up her Ukrainian citizenship to become Russian.
She said: "I had almost nowhere to go but an acquaintance took me in and I lived with her.
"I told them[Russians] I wanted to return to Ukraine and I did not need their Russian passport."
Still stuck in occupied territory, Ksenia knew she had to get back home but made a vow not to return without her 11-year-old brother.
She set about obtaining documents and a lawyer but she knew she faced an uphill battle to get into Russia and find her brother.
"My brother wanted to come back with me, he told me this himself. But later after the foster family started brainwashing him my brother changed his mind.
"He no longer wanted to leave, he stopped communicating altogether", Ksenia explains.
Through social services, she was able to maintain some contact and she was able to get help from the Save Ukraine fund.
Ksenia wasn’t able to share the details of her secret journey but the brave teen took on Putin's sick illegal adoption system and won.
She said: "It was very scary, it was very difficult to travel because I didn’t know where we would end up, where we would live, what would happen next.
"My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be allowed to pass, and we’d be stuck there[Russia]."
After being able to cross the border into Russia Ksenia says she feared that she wouldn’t be able to make contact with her brother and that she might not even be able to make it back to Ukraine.
She was careful to hide her Ukrainian identity throughout, something that she says helped save her life.
She added: "I didn’t openly show my pro-Ukrainian position while in [occupied] Ukraine, that really saved me because they were very aggressive, angry people who were strongly influenced by propaganda.
"My thoughts, which I kept to myself, helped keep me safe."
'I was snatched by Russian soldier'
ILLIA, 11, was deported from Mariupol after a Russian missile strike killed his mother and left him with horror shrapnel wounds when he was nine.
His neighbours buried his mum's body in their back garden before he was snatched by Vlad's soldiers and taken for surgery at a camp in Donestk.
The shrapnel was removed without any anaesthetic and forced to write and speak Russian and repeat "Glory to Ukraine as part of Russia".
He says Russian forces tried to turn him into a "propaganda tool" but that he is not "one to be duped so easily."
Illia's grandmother had been searching for her grandson ever since losing contact with her daughter in March 2022.
It wasn't until they spotted the young boy in a video from Russia that she realised he was alone and that her daughter had been killed.
His grandmother never gave up hope and set about getting her injured grandson back home where he belonged.
Months later, Illia returned home to Ukraine and had further surgery to remove more fragments from his leg while 11 remain.
His grandmother Olena said: "He had a school, he had a home, he had a mother and he lost all of that - his entire childhood.
"He kept to himself, he was afraid of noise, he was afraid of sirens. He had no memory.
He now has dreams of becoming a doctor so that he can help fighters on the frontline as a combat medic.
At 11 years old, her younger brother Serhii struggled to understand that he’d been deported illegally to Russia and was vulnerable to brainwashing tactics by his foster family.
Ksenia said: "They [the family] wanted to keep him there, they didn’t want to give him back to anyone, especially me. He didn’t understand that.
Finally, months later, his brave sister had the documents to be able to take her brother home but there was one final hurdle - he had to agree to leave.
The pair eventually made it back to Kyiv where they were able to stay at a Hope and Recovery centre run by the Save Ukraine Foundation.
Serhii was able to find a loving home with a Ukrainian family and Ksenia is now living independently while studying TV journalism at university.
She gets to see her younger brother most weekends and during the holidays and she says she is thrilled to have him home for Christmas.
She said: "For Serhii and me, life has changed drastically.
"…The head of the Save Ukraine Foundation calmed me down after our return, saying not to worry. All the issues we had would eventually be resolved.
"When my brother joined his foster family he continued his studies and I enrolled in university.
"My brother immediately got to know all his classmates and started talking to them and now he had lots of friends.
"He’s grown a lot, he’s become wiser. He has dreams, and ambitions for the future."
Knesia hopes that one day she’ll be able to start a family of her own and that all the Ukrainian children deported to Russia will be able to make it home.
She added: "I also work with the Save Ukraine Foundation to help other children and my personal goal is to bring back all the children who were taken away."
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English (US) · 