Families urge Russia to return deported Ukraine children
TLE DESK – Families of Ukrainian children forcibly deported to Russia sounded the alarm on Monday about their fate, saying all communication had been severed as they appealed for international support.
At a rare news conference in Paris, Darina Repina — the legal guardian of two Ukrainian children taken to Russia following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022 — said Russian authorities were refusing to respond to any requests for their return.
“There’s no chance of being heard by them,” Repina told reporters at the event organised by the Emile Foundation, which has been working to repatriate abducted Ukrainian children.
Among the cases highlighted was that of siblings Margarita and Maksym Prokopenko, who were taken from their orphanage in the occupied southern city of Kherson in 2022. The children were separated: six-year-old Maksym is currently in a Russian orphanage, while Margarita, who was 10 months old when she was taken, was adopted by the family of Sergei Mironov, a close political ally of President Vladimir Putin, Repina said.
She added that Russian authorities had changed the young girl’s name and identity, raising fears she may never be recovered.
Mironov, head of a pro-Kremlin party, has denied adopting Margarita, claiming in a 2023 social media post that Ukrainian intelligence and Western states were attempting to smear him.
Repina, who is caring for the siblings’ elder sister, said she had been preparing to bring the two younger children home when Russia launched its invasion. The children’s mother has since lost parental rights.
Another relative, Lyubov Burina, said her grandchildren Angelina and Yevhen — aged three and one at the time — were deported after being temporarily placed in an orphanage in Kherson due to a family crisis. She said all attempts to locate them have failed, though recent information suggests they may be in Simferopol in Russian-annexed Crimea.
“We contacted both the police and social services,” the 55-year-old said, describing a fruitless two-year search.
According to Kyiv, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly taken to Russia or Russian-occupied territories since the war began — a figure that may be higher, officials say. The return of abducted children has become a top diplomatic priority for Ukraine.
But Mariam Lambert, co-founder of the Emile Foundation, said relatives and legal guardians are often excluded from international discussions about the children, with the issue becoming heavily politicised.
“Celebrities and politicians talk about this, but not the mothers,” she said. “It’s time to give them a voice.”
Lambert said the organisation has so far helped bring 48 children back to Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for President Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over allegations of the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.
