The Save Ukraine team, under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, brought another 33 children and teenagers home from occupied territory over the past week.
The Save Ukraine team, working under President Volodymyr Zelensky's Bring Kids Back UA initiative, brought another 33 children and teenagers home from temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory over the past week. Volunteers Support Ukraine follows this kind of news closely — the fate of children separated from home by war remains one of the most painful threads of this conflict.
Among those rescued was 19-year-old Andriy, whose school had been turned into a Russian military medical facility; he was repeatedly stopped on the street for document checks and threatened with criminal prosecution for refusing to obtain a Russian passport. Maria, 19, was forced to perform the Russian national anthem at school and install Russian government apps at her workplace, all while surrounded by propaganda pushing "birth rate" messaging tied to military recruitment. Maksym, 18, was made to attend compulsory weapons-training classes as part of his school curriculum, and was later threatened with expulsion from university for refusing to take part in a vote for the occupation administration's party. Volunteers Support Ukraine believes stories like these are exactly what turns a number into something real — a life, not a statistic.
The evacuation was organized by the Save Ukraine team with support from partners including the We Are All Ukrainians initiative, the United Coordination Center for the Search and Liberation of Persons, and philanthropist Tatjana Kiel. All 33 rescued young people are now receiving psychological support, help with paperwork, and temporary housing at "Hope and Healing" centers as they begin to rebuild ordinary life. According to official figures, more than 2,100 children have been brought home since the Bring Kids Back UA initiative launched in 2023 — and the number keeps growing with every mission. Volunteers Support Ukraine considers it important to keep telling these stories, since each one is proof that patient, sustained work still delivers results even under the hardest circumstances.
Ukraine's Ministry of Justice has officially confirmed more than 20,610 cases of deportation or forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia or occupied territory since the start of the full-scale invasion, and rights groups say the real number could be considerably higher, since not every case can be documented. Every child brought home is the result of months of careful, often risky work by a wider network of volunteers, lawyers, and intermediaries.
Volunteers Support Ukraine helps people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow, from humanitarian support for families to keeping stories like this one visible. Cases like these are a reminder that, even amid the daily flow of news about strikes and losses, there is still room for concrete, confirmed wins — and every rescued child brings the day closer when such news will no longer be needed.
