Where are Ukraine's abducted children?

On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

WBUR

News, On Point, Daily, Npr, Talk Show

4.3 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russian forces in the past four years of war. They have been placed in Russian re-education camps, adopted by Russian families, or sent for military training. What will it take to get them back?

*** Thank you for listening. Help power On Point by making a donation here: wbur.org/giveonpoint

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. A recent episode asks, are boardrooms ready for the new geopolitical reality? Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.
0:18.1	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:27.1	Vladislav Buryak was in the car with his father.
0:30.9	April 8, 2022.
0:33.6	They were trying to evacuate from their hometown of Mariupo, Ukraine.
0:38.4	The Russian military had invaded his country just two months earlier on February 24, 2022, which is exactly four years ago today.
0:49.2	Vladislav and his father slowed down at a Russian military checkpoint.
0:54.4	He was just 16 years old, and so the teenager had his phone with him.
1:00.0	A Russian soldier caught sight of it and immediately accused Vadislav of filming the soldiers.
1:06.7	He demanded that Vladislav hand over the phone.
1:09.9	And what happened next would change Vladislav's life,
1:13.0	as it has for tens of thousands of Ukrainian teens and children.
1:20.0	When I gave him my telephone, he found some telegram groups.
1:26.2	And in these telegram groups, there was a video about a few Russian soldiers.
1:31.0	They were saying that we don't want to take part in this war.
1:34.3	This war is stupid.
1:36.7	He was very furious about the situation.
1:39.5	He shouted at me and went away from the car.
1:42.4	After, he came back with a gun and said to me,
1:45.0	should I kill you right now or smash your phone?
1:48.0	Should they kill you right now or smash your phones?
1:52.0	And I was really scared because I didn't understand what they would do.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WBUR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WBUR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.