'Some of them believe they have always been Russian'

Tom Watling tells how kidnapped Ukrainian children have been 'brainwashed' after being taken into Russia or Russian-occupied territory - and how others may still be trapped

- Tom Watling

Anastasiia Motychak did not know why Irina - the person in charge of her camp in Russian-occupied Crimea - had just slapped her across the face; she just knew she missed her mum and wanted to go home to the Ukrainian city of Kherson.

It had been two months since the then 15-year-old had been put on a bus and moved from the then Russian-occupied Kherson, in southern Ukraine, to a two-week “vacation camp” in Yevpatoria, western Crimea. Kherson was no place for a child, the Russian soldiers had warned.

Days later, Ukrainian forces liberated the city. But by then, Anastasiia was 150 miles deeper into occupied territory, sleeping in a room with barred windows. Living in areas held by different military forces, she and her mother soon struggled to communicate; the cell lines between the two cities had been cut.

Then Irina showed up. The short-tempered teacher would glare at Anastasiia and swear at the children. None of them knew why.

One January evening, after Anastasiia had returned from a walk – something she was allowed to do – her roommate pulled her into their room and told her Irina was looking for her. Confused, the teenager poked her head out of her room to see if Irina was near. She was.

“She grabbed me and took me into a room nearby,” the teen recalls. “She started swearing, telling me that I would never return home. She said she was sick of me. She said that if I did anything like this again, she would call the police and send me to the Ural mountains in Russia. Then she closed the door and she slapped me across the face.” Anastasiia still doesn’t know what she did wrong.

Roughly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been moved to such camps since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to Ukrainian officials. Nearly a quarter of those who have been taken are orphans or children without parental care.