Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, boasts that 700,000 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia “for their safety.” Among Russia’s War Crimes, kidnapping Ukraine’s children may be the cruelest. Sadly, it exists on a horrific scale.
The anguish of these children’s families is hard to imagine, but what about the experience of the children who were actually kidnapped? Only a few have been rescued, but here’s the experience of two Ukrainian children who were victims of this crime.
Sergiy Koldin was 11 and his sister Ksenia 17 when they were kidnapped and sent to Russia two years ago. The Russians separated the children, and they ended up 900 miles apart. As Ksenia explained in a recent in person interview, the two didn’t see each other for nine months. “It was the worst nine months of my life,” she said.
During her time in captivity,…
