Russian forces kidnapped the son of a city official in Zaporizhia, the father launched a campaign on social media and asked anyone who could put pressure on the Russians to release his son. Today he announced that the child has been gone for 84 days. “Some people have lost their children, or their children have died. Some parents have lost their children without a trace.”
Almost three months have passed since Vlad Buryak, a Ukrainian boy, was abducted by Russian invaders. According to his father, “he was taken hostage” by Russian soldiers.
Father Oleg Buryak, the head of the military administration in Zaporizhia, the capital of the Zaporizhia region, believes Vlad was a target because of his senior government role. The father has launched a campaign on social media and is asking anyone who can put pressure on the Russians to release his son. Today he announced that 84 days have passed since his son disappeared.
While Russian forces now control four districts in Zaporizhia, a southeastern region on the Dnieper River, the area of Buryak remains in Ukrainian hands. “I will not let anyone take it,” he told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview. But as for the abduction of his 16-year-old son, Buriak he feels helpless.
On April 8, about a month after Russian forces occupied the city of Litopol, a civilian convoy of cars slowly attempted to evacuate the occupied area through a checkpoint manned by Russian soldiers. The boy Vlad was in one of these cars, on his way to Zaporizhia to be with his father.
This is 16 y.o. Vlad Buryak. He was abducted by Russians at a checkpoint near Melitopol. They checked his documents and found out that he is the son of the head of the Zaporizhia district state administration. Russians has been holding the child for more than a month in captivity pic.twitter.com/aSzoBXtd8q
– Oleksandra Matviichuk (@avalaina) May 12, 2022
After the soldiers checked his documents and understood who his father was, he became the first and only minor known in Ukraine to be taken hostage for foreign political purposes. He was later transferred to a place with good conditions, now he has access to a shower and toilet, and a mobile phone he used to call his father. To protect his son, Burik cannot reveal what the child’s kidnappers want or any details about what he experienced in us.
“I can not say what he saw or heard. From a hostage he can become a witness. And such witnesses can be disposed of so that no one can find their body,” he said.
He said that his son sent him a song of expression of longing, “My son has never sent me songs before,” he says. When asked how he copes, Boryak quickly reduces his suffering, saying others in Ukraine have “more serious problems.” “Some people have lost their children, or their children have died. There are parents whose children have disappeared without a trace.”
Last year, 182 children were reported missing in the country. In the three months of the war, that number had reached 2,200, some of the children were missing after losing contact with their families due to damage to infrastructure, or when the power to the phones ran out while they were hiding from bombs. In the worst-case scenarios, children are killed in attacks or forcibly abducted, according to a report by an organization that monitors abducted children to return them to families whose organization is Missing Children Europe, based in Brussels, Belgium.