Kyiv
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Rostyslav Lavrov knew he had to escape. He was stuck at a Russian naval academy in occupied Crimea, where he was sent at the age of 16 after Moscow’s forces took over his hometown in Ukraine’s Kherson region. The school had even tried to give him a new – Russian – birth certificate to cement his transformation into a Russian.
He was determined not to let that happen. So, one day in October 2023, Lavrov said he walked out of his dorm, and embarked on a secret journey back to Ukraine.
Now 19 years old and living in Kyiv, Lavrov is one of the roughly 2,000 Ukrainian children and teenagers who have returned to their home country afterbeing either forcibly deported, illegally transferred to or stuck in Russia, Belarus or Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
Many of them, like Lavrov, had to leave clandestinely because getting out with Russian permission is nearly impossible.
Ukraine has rallied the world on the issue, building international coalitions to try to push Russia to cooperate. But its success has been limited. Less than a quarter of the 2,000 children who have returned so far came back came through official channels: 83 with the help of Qatar and 19 through a scheme spearheaded by US first lady Melania Trump.
Lavrov’s escape plan had been in the works for three months when he finally walked through the gates of the Russian school for the last time.
He had secretly managed to contact volunteers from Save Ukraine, a group that rescues children trapped in Russia and Russian-occupied territories. They set to work, arranging his way out.
“I chose a day when I had (classes) in another building. I got up in the morning, put on my uniform and did everything as normal so they would think I was going to study,” he told CNN, adding that Save Ukraine volunteers were waiting to pick him up at a nearby location.
“I didn’t take anything with me to avoid drawing attention to myself. I was nervous at the checkpoints, but I tried to stay calm and not show it.” He isn’t sure exactly how long it took him to make it to Ukrainian-held territory but estimates two days. He discovered later that the journey was perhaps even riskier than he thought – the Russian authorities had declared him “missing and wanted.”
Mykola Kuleba, the founder of Save Ukraine and Ukraine’s former children’s ombudsman, said Lavrov’s escape was not unusual in nature.
“It’s like a special operation for every child,” he said, asking CNN not to reveal too many details to avoid putting anyone at risk. “We don’t work with the Russian authorities or any officials in occupied territories, because it’s really dangerous,” he said, explaining that, in his experience, giving them any information leads to complications. Once Moscow knows Ukraine wants a particular child, it will do anything it can to prevent them from returning, he claimed.
Yulia Dvornychenko experienced this kind of alleged Russian obstruction firsthand.
She was separated from her sons, Danylo, then 17, and Mark, 9, when she was arrested in 2021 at her home in Torez, an eastern Ukrainian town occupied by pro-Russia separatists since 2014. Accused of being a Ukrainian spy. She is a widow, and her new partner was arrested alongside her, so she was told that her children would be sent to a Russian orphanage unless she signed a false confession – which she did.
Eighteen months later, she was released in a prisoner of war (POW) exchange. Mark was still in Torez, living with a family friend, and Danylo lying low in Moscow, where he fled from Torez when it became clear he was at high risk of being drafted into the Russian army.
Once in a government-controlled area of Ukraine, Dvornychenko immediately started working on getting them back, getting help from the Ukrainian government.
Russian authorities first told her Mark, now 11, would be returned in a POW exchange. She tried to reassure him, saying not to get scared if the Russians tied his hands and blindfolded him. “I told him it meant he was coming home. I knew what happens during those (exchanges),” she said.
She spent a week waiting at the exchange location in the southern Zaporizhzhia region – but Mark did not show up. The office of the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights then introduced new conditions for his return, asking for Dvornychenko to come and pick him up personally – an option rejected by Ukraine, given the risk of her being rearrested.
Eventually, Dvornychenko said, “the only option was for Danylo to go to Torez and pick up Mark, but for that, we had to gather a bunch of documents… And we did all that. We faked it.”
Dvornychenko was reunited with two boys almost two years after that chaotic night of her arrest. “They weren’t the children I remembered. Mark had grown up a lot, Danylo had a beard, he was already a grown man. It was both joyful and sad. Sad because time had been lost,” she said.
CNN has asked the office of Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for a comment.
Kuleba said that Save Ukraine’s covert approach to bringing children back is sometimes criticized by international organizations, which say an official mechanism between Kyiv and Moscow is needed.
“We have been waiting for an official mechanism for years… so we have to do it unofficially,” he said. “We built an underground railroad to find and rescue these kids.”
As of the end of February, the group had brought back 1,162 Ukrainian children.
Darya Kasyanova, one of Ukraine’s leading children’s rights advocates and the chair of the Ukrainian Child Rights Network, said working with international organizations can be tricky, “because there are a lot of standards, a lot of limitations and challenges.”
Both she and Kuleba argue that some international standards – such as the need to interview each child and establish their best interests before returning them to Ukraine – are simply unworkable given the circumstances.
“It can be dangerous for these children because, in most cases, these children are really traumatized, many have been abused, including sexual abuse, which is why we are sure that it should be done only after returning (to Ukraine) or when the child reaches a safe third country,” Kasyanova said.
Like Kuleba, Kasyanova runs a group of volunteers focused on returning Ukrainian children from Russia and occupied territory.
Speaking to CNN last month, she was waiting for news about an operation to bring back two Ukrainian girls from Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia. She said each mission is a balancing act between achieving the child’s return and ensuring the safety of the volunteers who accompany each minor, since it’s become too risky for parents to travel there.
“It can be dangerous for the child and for our team,” she said. Hours after speaking with CNN, Kasyanova sent an update. The two girls rescued from Crimea had safely crossed the border. The number of children her team had returned now stood at 341.
The Ukrainian government has identified 20,000 children it says have been forcibly deported or illegally transferred to Russia, Belarus or Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Many have been funneled into reeducation camps or adopted by Russian families.
Moscow has publicly acknowledged the transfers, Lvova-Belova openly boasting about them and claiming Russia was “rescuing” orphans from Ukraine. In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their alleged role in the scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. The Kremlin rejected the ICC’s actions as “outrageous and unacceptable.”
The 20,000 figure includes only the children Ukraine knows about – and Save Ukraine continues to identify new cases of children abducted into Russia.
Many were taken from orphanages or residential schools in the chaos of the early days of the full-scale invasion and some have no living relatives who would be searching for them.
Save Ukraine’s 30-strong team is using all available tools to try to find them, from interviewing children who’ve returned about others they might have met in Russia, to using open-source intelligence techniques and social media campaigns on YouTube and TikTok. The team is even trying to connect with children inside online video games, Kuleba said.
But he admitted they are finding it increasingly hard to convince the abducted children that their home is in Ukraine. Four years is a long time – especially for the youngest.
“These kids are growing up and being poisoned by propaganda. Many of them have been brainwashed, and it’s really hard to convince them that no, there are no Nazis in Ukraine,” he said, referring to Putin’s false claim that neo-Nazis run its government.
According to Ukraine’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, more than 1.6 million Ukrainian children live in areas under Russian occupation and are forced to attend Russian schools which he described as “indoctrination machines.”
Taras, a 19-year-old from a Ukrainian village currently occupied by Russia, had been in government-controlled Ukraine for a week when CNN met with him. Because most of his large family is still living under occupation, he asked CNN to use a pseudonym, choosing Taras after the 19th-century Ukrainian hero Taras Shevchenko.
He told CNN that younger children and teenagers in occupied Ukraine face Russian indoctrination every day and are being prepared for future military service. “Children are now given automatic weapons to take apart and reassemble. In school, they dress them (in uniforms), make them run and do training,” he said.
“The (Russians) are specifically targeting those who did not take Russian passports and did not send their children to school. If a child does not go to school, they take him or her to a Russian children’s colony,” he said.
His family, who have a farm, couldn’t afford to flee when Russia first took over their village. “They confiscated our car, our only means of earning money, because we sell potatoes at the markets. My sister became distraught and started crying when one of the soldiers wanted to ‘get to know’ her,” Taras told CNN, adding that the soldier became aggressive when she rejected him.
When it became obvious Taras and his brothers were at risk of being drafted by the Russian military, the family decided they had to leave.
Just before Christmas, with the help of Save Ukraine, they managed to get Taras’ older brother out. In February, it was time for Taras to go. He had been waiting for days to hear from the volunteers and, when he finally got the call that they were coming to pick him up, he was ready within minutes.
As with Lavrov, Taras’ journey out was perilous, involving some deception and a huge amount of courage. He had a cover story he repeated at every checkpoint: a new job in Russia.
After three days, he made it. Save Ukraine volunteers were waiting for him at the border. They gave him a Ukrainian flag in which he immediately wrapped himself. He swore he’d keep it forever. “The sun was shining and I sent a message to my mum: ‘That’s it, mum, I’m home,’” he told CNN.
Inside Save Ukraine’s office in Kyiv is a large stack of these Ukrainian flags – ready for the children who’ll be rescued next. Taras is hoping his siblings who are still in occupied Ukraine will soon get one of them. Save Ukraine is working on that.
