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Ukrainecast

Ukraine’s ‘stolen’ children: A mother's search for her son

Ukrainecast

BBC

News Commentary, News

4.71K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A Ukrainian mother from Kherson whose teenage son was taken to a 'summer camp' by Russian soldiers talks about her epic journey to bring him home.

And award-winning film maker Shahida Tulaganova tells us about her new documentary, Ukraine’s Stolen Children.

Today’s episode is presented by Victoria Derbyshire and Vitaly Shevchenko. The producers were Keiligh Baker, Clare Williamson, Arsenii Sokolov, Ivana Davidovic and Alex Collins. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The series producer is Tim Walklate. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. Email Ukrainecast@bbc.co.uk with your questions and comments. You can also send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to +44 330 1239480

You can join the Ukrainecast discussion on Newscast’s Discord server here: tinyurl.com/ukrainecastdiscord

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

0:05.0

Hello, it's 608 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

0:10.2

And last week we touched on the story of four Ukrainian children being returned from Russia

0:16.1

following a deal broken by Qatar.

0:19.4

And a new documentary has just come out called Ukraine's Stolen Children, which describes

0:25.9

a Russian campaign of moving Ukrainian children to Russia or occupied territories.

0:32.6

And it contains powerful and moving first-hand accounts of how this campaign works with children

0:41.1

of their parents, describing their experiences, parents describing how they were desperately

0:48.5

trying to get their children back, children speaking about how they were unable to reunite

0:55.0

with their Ukrainian families, and also about how they were indoctrinated and brainwashed

1:01.5

by Russia is one of these children, Kostya.

1:06.9

In Russia, we were intimidated.

1:12.3

They were trying to confuse our brains that we wouldn't leave, to turn against Ukraine

1:17.0

and everybody, all the children, were falling for it.

1:20.2

And then they said that when I'm 18, I could get an apartment in Krasnodar.

1:24.4

I would regularly get 30,000 rubles and have a normal life.

1:28.5

And if returned to Ukraine, I would get nothing.

1:35.3

And if you're wondering, 30,000 rubles is roughly 260 pounds and presumably that's what

1:41.4

they were promised to be getting per month.

1:44.1

So if you're Russia and you're taking Ukrainian kids and then bribing them essentially

1:51.2

to stay in Russia, what's the motivation?

1:54.6

What are you trying to do?

...

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