War against Ukraine: Daughter brought back from enemy country

It was supposed to be a two-week school trip to Crimea. But the Russian occupiers did not let Katya go. Then mother Halyna brought her daughter back with an adventurous journey.

“I’m just fine,” says Halyna Kravchenko from Cherson and smiles. The 33-year-old has never been outside of Ukraine. Now she has brought her daughter back in an adventurous tour. She traveled via Poland, Belarus and Russia to Russian-occupied Crimea and back again. A journey into enemy territory.

Do you feel this is our earth?”

“To be honest, I can’t really explain it,” says Halyna. “I’m a bit calmer now because I’m back in Ukraine.” When they crossed the border with the girls, she said: “Do you feel that this is our earth?”

She has no rights in foreign territory, says Halyna. “As soon as they hear that you’re from the Ukraine, they start looking at you like that.” They sat in Moscow for nine hours and were immediately told that they were immediately recognizable as Cherson mothers.

Katya sits next to her on the sofa, mother and daughter keep hugging each other. “I’m happy to see everyone again,” says the 14-year-old. But her mother had already “started educating me again”. Katya started smoking, her mother replies. “And when I say something, she immediately puts out her spikes. Like a hedgehog.”

Aid organization has brought back 60 children so far

Two days earlier, mother and daughter pulled their suitcases across the Ukrainian-Belarusian border near Mokrany. They don’t talk, but get tired and worn out into the waiting minibus of the Ukrainian organization Save Ukraine. This helps desperate parents to get their kidnapped children back from Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.

With Katya, 15 more people come back that day. So far, Save Ukraine has brought back around 60 children and young people. Together with Halyna, eleven mothers and grandmothers dared to travel from the Ukrainian-controlled area of ​​the country via Belarus and Russia to the Russian-annexed Crimea and back again, as Olga Yerokhina from Save Ukraine says. The children had supposedly been taken there for rest and did not return.

That’s a big detour, says Olga. The women went to Poland via Lviv and from there to Moscow via Belarus. It is absurd and cynical to imagine how these mothers and grandmothers from Kherson and the surrounding area in southern Ukraine would have to travel to nearby Crimea to bring their children home.

“We don’t cooperate with the Russians”

“We don’t cooperate with the Russians, and we don’t agree on anything either,” says Olga. The mothers have the addresses of the shelters and a few phone numbers. They are in contact with their children, because they usually have cell phones.

The volunteer organization regulates everything, says Olga: the financial as well as social and psychological issues. They provided buses, and Save Ukraine drivers accompanied the mothers and grandmothers. They are always in touch and in control of everything. “If things go well, the children get on the bus and go back with their mothers.”

School denies any responsibility

When Katya went to Crimea in early October, Kherson was still under Russian occupation. Your school had organized everything, but today it evades all responsibility. The Ukrainian teachers also disappeared at some point, says Katya. She herself was always comforted.

“We asked when we could go home, but they said: ‘When Cherson becomes Russian,'” says Katya. They wouldn’t have let her go for six months.

The return trip to Cherson is too dangerous, parents are told that again and again. The 14-year-old Dajana gets to hear that too. Together with Katya, Dajana and her mother manage to return from Crimea to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

“If you stay here, your parents will lose custody of you,” she keeps hearing. It was also said that the situation in Cherson was dangerous. According to the law, it is forbidden to be without parents for six months, says Dajana. Although this is not legal, Russian occupiers are also threatening Katya’s mother Halyna with losing custody of her daughter. She was at least in contact with her mother via social media, but she had to defend herself against Russian influence on the spot.

“I just ran away”

Sufficient food, sport, lessons, going to the disco in the evening or watching a film: The day went very smoothly. But they were forced to say “Forward, Russia!” to sing when inspectors came from Moscow, says Katya. Every morning the Russian anthem was played during training. At the shelter they would have woken up the girls with this anthem. She rarely went to school, says Katya. “They forced me, I just ran away.”

On the sofa, Halyna again hugs Katya. She only got through the grueling journey with sedatives. But she would start it again at any time, the journey into enemy territory. Because she would never leave one of her children alone. “I knew I would get the child. I know what it’s like without parents,” says Halyna.

She grew up without a mother and father, and they were deprived of custody. “And that’s how I got strong in life.”