Five children have been reunited with their families and returned from Russian occupied Ukrainian territories thanks to Qatari mediation, the head of the Ukrainian President’s office said on Saturday.
Andrii Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said in a post on X that the children were brought back under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative in coordination with the Ombudsman's office.
Україна повернула ще п’ять українських дітей з тимчасово окупованих територій та РФ.
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) March 29, 2025
Це повернення стало можливим завдяки зусиллям в рамках ініціативі Президента України @BringKidsBackUA, зокрема Офісу Омбудсмана.
Окремо дякую Державі Катар за медіацію щодо повернення дітей. pic.twitter.com/OC4Ws2kV5u
In another case, a 12-year-old girl whose parents are divorced and whose father is held in Russian captivity has been relocated by the Russians several times since the invasion started. The ordeal caused a severe decline in her health, both physical and mental. She will now be in the custody of her grandmother, receiving support from the authorities.
Other children in the group were subjected to “psychological pressure, threats of deportation, and restrictions on education under the Russian curriculum,” the Ukrainian UNITED24 Media news website reported.
Ukraine has returned five more Ukrainian children from the temporarily occupied territories (TOT), the Head of the President's Office, Andrii Yermak, announced.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) March 29, 2025
The age of the children is from 11 to 16 years, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said. They were returned from the TOT of… pic.twitter.com/3eVYg2Zs8N
So far, 1,221 children have been successfully returned from Russian captivity. Yermak stressed, that the Russian kidnapping of Ukrainian children amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Bring Kids Back UA is a humanitarian program launched by Zelenskyy in 2023. Its objectives include returning and reintegrating the children, aiding their social adaptation, promoting family-based care and documenting crimes for international accountability, including actions at the International Criminal Court.
Earlier, four Ukrainian teenagers were repatriated from Russian-occupied territories under the initiative. This group included a 14-year-old girl who was denied medical care because of her Ukrainian citizenship and a 16-year-old boy, the son of a Ukrainian soldier, who endured interrogation and forced military registration.
