This story was published in print in April 2024. 

The following interviews were conducted in Ukrainian and translated into English.

“When I hear the helicopter sound, I start to remember the first days of the war.”

Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, then-17-year-old Ksenia and her younger brother lived in a foster home in Vovchans’k, a Ukrainian city bordering Russia. As tensions between Russia and Ukraine grew in the early months of 2022, Ksenia began monitoring news channels, constantly tracking the progression of Russian tanks and missiles toward the Ukrainian border. Fears of a Russian attack kept her awake at night for weeks, and soon, her nightmares became a reality: Russian forces invaded Vovchans’k in April 2022.
Russia and Ukraine’s tenuous relationship predates the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, but tensions between the two nations rose sharply in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a Ukrainian territory. The ongoing conflict spiked in February 2022, when Russia initiated an ongoing large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the war has directly impacted the lives of Ukrainians and has resulted in the largest European forced migration since World War II. As of February 2024, approximately 6.5 million Ukrainians have been internationally displaced and 3.7 million have been displaced within the country, according to a U.S. report for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Agency.
A 2023 NIH study found that Ukrainian citizens who have directly witnessed “war traumas,” such as severe human suffering, physical violence and military attacks, experience higher levels of stress, depression, anxiety, PTSD and other mental illnesses when compared to other Ukrainians. A UNICEF estimate from 2023 approximates that 1.5 million Ukrainian children are at risk of developing trauma-based mental health issues as a result of the ongoing conflict.
Ksenia is one of five Ukrainian teenagers who visited the U.S. with Save Ukraine, a humanitarian organization founded in 2014 and based in Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, that now aids victims of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The group traveled to the U.S. in late January to attend the third annual Ukrainian Week, a forum aimed at facilitating partnerships between American and Ukrainian leaders and increasing support for Ukraine aid.
Before the initial invasion, these five Ukrainian children led typical teenage lives: they attended school, spent time with friends and participated in after-school activities. Ksenia enjoyed her routine dance classes, 16-year-old Elizaveta played for her high school’s volleyball team and 18-year-old Denys pursued an interest in car mechanics.
Despite the long history of conflict in the region, the idea of a full-fledged Russian attack on her home was previously unfathomable to Elizaveta; she had only ever encountered the idea of Russian invasions in conversation with her grandfather or films. But when she saw clouds of smoke and dust through her window and heard the sounds of explosions in early 2022, she realized that war had become her reality, she said.
During the initial breakout of the war, Denys tried to keep his composure and became a caretaker for his family.
“It was all about survival and finding food in those first days and weeks,” Denys said. “I was in shock, but I kept myself calm because my family was already in shock. Somebody had to not lose their mind.”
Russian forces initiated their first large-scale child abduction program a few days before the war began. The Russian govern- ment transported 500 children, allegedly all orphans, from Eastern Ukraine to Russian territory, officially stating the displacement was to protect the children from the harmful impacts of conflict.
According to The Hill, as of Feb. 24, 2024, Ukrainian officials have verified more than 19,000 Russian abductions and believe the real number to be higher, based on claims from Russian officials that they’ve transferred 700,000 to 750,000 Ukrainian children into Russian territory. Russia portrays its actions as purely humanitarian, as officials like Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, have argued that their goal is to remove children from dangerous conflict areas.
In early 2022, Russian soldiers abducted 18-year-old Rostislav’s mother, who suffered from mental illness, and relocated her to an undisclosed medical facility, returning a few months later to send Rostislav to a re-education camp in Crimea.
Russian forces abducted Elizaveta from a children’s home in Kherson, Ukraine, and moved her to two different camps before ultimately placing her in a Russian-occupied college in Henichesk, Ukraine.
Under Russian occupation, Ksenia’s Ukrainian foster parents agreed to send her to a Russian technical school, but sent her brother to a Russian summer camp, separating the pair by hundreds of miles.
Armed Russian soldiers arrived at Denys’ house in October 2022 and sent him to the same camp as Rostislav, forcing Denys to leave behind his parents, both of whom had significant hearing impairments.
Daiana received paperwork from her school forcing her to relocate to a Russian-occupied school in Crimea in October 2022.
The teenagers’ experiences and living conditions in Russian custody varied, but all five lived in Russian summer camps, colleges or rehabilitation centers. In the holding facilities, Russian authorities had significant control over the children, keeping them on strict daily schedules and, in many cases, withholding necessities from them.
Elizaveta, who lived in a college, followed a rigid schedule that dictated where she could go and what she could do – rule violations would result in punishments like washing all five floors of the dormitory building. In the dorms, the children didn’t have any privacy; they weren’t allowed to close their bedroom doors, and military personnel could enter their rooms at any time, said Elizaveta.
Of 43 such Russian facilities identified in a Yale Humanitarian Research Lab Report, researchers found that at least 78% engaged in re-education biased education programs that serve Russia’s political interests. Daily classes in Ksenia’s college included propaganda lessons titled “Conversations about Important Things,” which denounced the Ukrainian government and justified Russia’s invasion, she said. During their time in the facilities, Russian forces required the children to sing the Russian national anthem each morning, punishing them if they didn’t comply.
Ksenia, Denys and Rostislav testified to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, an independent commission of the U.S. Federal Government also known as the Helsinki Commission, about their experiences in Russian custody to inform Congress of the brutality of Russia’s attacks. Denys explained how Russian officials forced him to comply with their demands or face potentially fatal consequences. When he asked for more insulin for his diabetes, camp officials refused to provide any unless he pledged allegiance to Russia, Denys said.
According to Reuters, camp officials further attempted to enforce a pro-Russian narrative and demoralize Ukrainian children by assigning them Russian citizenship and having Russian families adopt them. Russian officials told Ksenia’s brother that nobody in Ukraine cared about him, aiming to isolate him from his home country, Ksenia told the Helsinki Commission.
Each adolescent found their own methods of resisting Russian influence and propaganda while they were detained. Elizaveta thought of her mother often, hoping that they would soon reunite, she said.
In the fall of 2022, Save Ukraine began to receive calls from Ukrainian parents seeking to reunite with their abducted children. The organization’s current primary objectives are bringing civilians away from conflict zones and returning abducted children to Ukraine through its network of lawyers, activists and volunteers.
Throughout the conflict, Save Ukraine has worked directly with parents and guardians to give them the training and resources needed to retrieve their kidnapped children. Even with Save Ukraine’s help, the retrieval process is long and expensive, the teenagers explained.
Daiana tried to stay optimistic while in Russian custody and became friends with many of her peers at the college. One night, a friend gave her the phone number for Save Ukraine. After finding out that the friend had returned home safely through the organization, Daiana jumped at the possibility and was eventually able to use her cell phone to secretly pass the number on to her mother. Her mother worked with Save Ukraine to come to the camp and retrieve her daughter.
For Elizaveta and Denys, Save Ukraine arranged for a relative or adult to pick them up and bring them home. Ksenia was kicked out of the technical school when she refused to accept Russian citizenship and lived with a friend in Russia until she could retrieve her brother from his camp. Save Ukraine worked with her to prepare the paperwork for her brother to return to Ukraine with her. Rostislav escaped alone across the Russia-Ukraine border, but could not share the details of his escape for security reasons.
“When I crossed the border, I couldn’t believe it; I was in Ukraine,” Rostislav said.

The international community has collectively criticized Russia’s child abduction programs. In Dec. 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Russia’s forced child deportations and abductions as human rights violations and calling for the return of all Ukrainian civilian hostages.
The International Criminal Court is currently seeking to arrest Commissioner Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their involvement in the deportations of Ukrainian children.
In her congressional testimony, Ksenia described the nine months she spent separated from her brother as “unbearable.”

“These nine months were the most horrible nine months of my life,” Ksenia said in her testimony. “I promised myself, I made a pledge, that I’m going to go back to Ukraine, and I’m going to go back with my little brother.”
Now that they have returned to Ukraine, the five teens have worked with Save Ukraine to inform people around the world of the actual conditions of the ongoing child abductions, Denys said, even as the Russian government maintains that they are protecting the children. Ksenia feels like mainstream media outlets focus on the Russian destruction of Ukrainian homes, buildings and infrastructure while ignoring the impacts the invasion has on individuals and families.
The conflict divided the Ukrainian population and caused rifts between previously close-knit communities, Daiana said. Russian authorities forced Daiana to move to Crimea, but after the abrupt abduction, some of her friends in Ukraine didn’t understand why she had left her hometown – they thought she had betrayed them by defecting to Russia.
While the war disconnected some communities, it also led other Ukrainians to reevaluate their existing relationships and grow closer to one another. Since the war, Elizaveta has lost communication with many friends but has become more appreciative of the relationships she has been able to maintain, including her relationship with her mother, she said.
“I didn’t have a very good relationship with my mother before the war, but now I’ve begun to value her more. I make time to see her, have tea and talk with her,” Elizaveta said. “I lost many friends because of the war — everyone went somewhere and we stopped communicating.”
While these five children were able to escape Russian persecution, many are not as fortunate and continue to face the harsh conditions of Russian custody. Save Ukraine continues to conduct rescue missions — according to their website, they have saved 264 children to date, and have the goal of rescuing the more than 19,546 remaining abducted Ukrainian children.
These young Ukrainians advise other young people around the world to value their relationships and their safety, and not take their circumstances for granted. It’s particularly important to value your family and friends, Elizaveta said, as someday you could lose them without warning.
“Appreciate what you have,” Daiana said. “Kids like us understand; we had it. Then we lost it.”