By Galina Korol | 2026-04-27

Approximately 1.6 million Ukrainian children are living under Russian control. More than 20,000 face deportation. Ukraine has managed to bring home 2,070. Last month, the United States committed $25 million to change that math.

The money targets two areas: tracking children's whereabouts and supporting those who return. Both tasks are harder than they sound.

Artem was 16 when Russian soldiers dragged his father out of their home in Kupyansk, beat him in front of the family, and accused him of aiding the resistance. Then they came for Artem. He had gone to his boarding school to collect his diploma. Instead, he was deported.

"They took everyone from ages 5 to 17," he recalled in an interview for Bring Kids Back UA. "We had no idea where they were taking us."

Artem spent six months in a dilapidated facility in Russian-controlled territory, crammed 10 to a room on iron beds with mesh frames. Daily meals were barley, canned meat and flavorless kompot, stewed fruit drink, with crackers. "Ever since then, the sight of barley makes me nauseous," he said. "I won't eat it."

Systematic indoctrination began almost immediately. Lessons were held in Russian. During military visits, staff forced the children to wear Russian uniforms and participate in staged events. Threats were constant.

"They kept telling me: you'll be given to a Russian family, you'll never go back," Artem said. A friend's smuggled phone and a single call home eventually set his return in motion.

"I want everyone to know my story, so that the Russians return all the children," he said. "I survived this, and I don't want other children to go through the same thing."

$25 million for a broken system

The US funding addresses a fundamental problem: Russia's deportation system is designed to erase tracks. Children move between Russian regions, get placed in boarding schools, camps or Russian families, and receive new names and documents.

Kateryna Rashevska, a lawyer and expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights (RCHR), told Kontur the case of one child illustrates the problem: Marharyta Prokopenko likely became Marina Mironova. Her location and caretakers are known. Bringing her home is another matter.

"We won't bring back significantly more children just by increasing the budget," Rashevska said. "The main obstacle remains the barriers created by the Russian Federation."

Those barriers include Federal Security Service (FSB) intimidation, blocked checkpoints and severely restricted crossing routes. Since January, Russia has required biometric passports for all children, including those under 14, along with extensive documentation from legal guardians. Teenagers face an additional threat: at 17, they receive conscription notices, and at 18, they risk being drafted into the Russian military.

Rashevska stressed that locating a child and returning one are entirely different problems. Data collected on cases must be handled strategically, with a clear distinction between information used for immediate rescue operations and evidence preserved for accountability. Some of that evidence may not serve justice for decades.

"Even if children do not return, they must have potential access to information about their origins in the future," she said. "This is their inherent right."

The work after the return

The second funding area covers rehabilitation.

Yuliia Tukalenko, a psychologist at the Voices of Children charitable foundation, said returned children do not step back into their old lives. They enter a new state they must learn to navigate.

"The manifestations can vary greatly depending on the child's age, the experiences they endured, and how long they were held there," Tukalenko said.

Some children become quiet, obedient, almost invisible -- a learned response to prolonged control, where suppressing oneself meant avoiding punishment. Others swing the opposite way: aggression, sharp emotional outbursts, hypersensitivity. Both are normal responses to abnormal experiences.

Trauma also surfaces as sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating and a state of constant hyper-vigilance.

"It is extremely difficult to tell from a child's appearance that they have lived through such an experience," Tukalenko said. "On the surface, they may seem to behave normally, but inside, they are in a state of constant readiness for danger."

Deportation, she explained, is more than displacement. It is a systemic reshaping -- restricted language, a changed curriculum, imposed ideology, daily pressure from adults and peers alike. Children develop survival strategies: performing required narratives while privately rejecting them.

Recovery can take years. Adults, Tukalenko said, must resist pushing children to return to who they were before. The task is simpler and harder than that: create safety, acceptance and space to heal.