2024-04-12 20:42:31
The then sixteen-year-old Denys Kostev from Cherson, southern Ukraine, was kidnapped by the Russian occupiers at the very beginning of the invasion. His family didn’t know where he was for months. The Russians held him in re-education camps in Russia and in the occupied territories of Ukraine, where he became a star of the Kremlin’s war propaganda. Two years later he managed to escape.
Denys is one of twenty thousand Ukrainian children who, according to the government in Kyiv, were illegally dragged to Russia by the occupiers. So far, only four thousand of them have been returned to their families. The boy, who was on the run from Russia through Belarus for about a week, now lives safely in Poland, from where he describes his story.
“I was insanely happy. When I crossed to Poland and I knew I was outside of Russia, I realized that by crossing the border I had started a new stage of my life,” he confided to the Scripps News server, which met with him just a few hours after his arrival in Poland.
Denys’ relatives, who fled to Germany before the war, campaigned for his return for several months, but for a long time they did not succeed in convincing him. The whole event was led by the Save Ukraine organization, which helps families find their lost children. It is headed by the former government commissioner for children’s rights, Mykola Kuleb, who spoke about Denys’ story in an interview with Aktuálně.cz last October.
“We lost him like many others,” explained Kuleba at the time, adding that, according to him, there was no longer any hope that Denys would want to return home. After arriving in Russia, he changed his phone number and cut off contact with relatives. He got a Russian passport and started making propaganda videos supporting President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. “He believed that there were Nazis in Ukraine,” added Kuleba.
In February 2023, on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Denys appeared draped in a Russian flag in a report on Russian state television. “I want to serve in the army. I am ready to serve the Russian Federation,” he said in an interview. After fleeing Russia, he described being threatened by the FSB secret service and cooperating with the Russians out of fear for his life.
“There is a war going on and you don’t know how to survive, you are alone. There is no one around you who is interested in your life, no one needs you. When your life is in danger, you will do anything to be safe,” Denys described in a testimony that Aktually .cz was provided by the organization Save Ukraine.
Brainwashing
According to Ukrainian officials, he was the target of a so-called indoctrination campaign after his abduction from his native Kherson to the annexed Crimea. The Russians in the local Druzhba camp, where Denys was initially held, woke up the children every day at six in the morning to warm up and sing the Russian national anthem. Russian flags were flying everywhere. Many children also described being punished for speaking Ukrainian after returning home.
He spent several months in Crimea, moving between two camps. Already there he understood that it is better to cooperate with the Russians. When he complained about the poor conditions, they started threatening to take him to the forest and beat him up there.
In November 2022, the Russians moved Denys to a camp in the occupied city of Henichesk on the shores of the Sea of Azov, where he began fighting against Ukraine under the influence of Russian propaganda. So when the occupiers asked him to film propaganda materials, he agreed. In them, he proclaimed the glory of Russia and spoke of its inevitable victory in Ukraine.
A complicated homecoming
Over time, however, he came into contact with relatives, to whom he began to complain that he was homesick. A family friend, Olha Hurulia, volunteered to try to get the boy away and got in touch with the non-profit organization Save Ukraine. However, she was detained by the Russians when she arrived in Moscow. She made the trip in vain.
“The FSB blocked the whole event. Olga was deported by the Russians, and in the meantime Denys changed his mind that he didn’t really want to return. He even joined the ranks of the Russian youth army there. We got in touch with his brother, who also tried to convince him, but it didn’t work,” Kuleb described the complicated rescue mission to Aktuálně.cz.
The Russians allegedly promised Denys an apartment in Moscow, a place at a prestigious school in the Russian capital, a job and a stable salary. After the last phone call, the family didn’t hear from him for about seven months until last Christmas, when he confessed to them that the occupiers forced him to do all the propaganda he filmed.
Four months later, he fled Russia with the help of the Save Ukraine organization. What he experienced along the way, but he doesn’t want to talk. His final destination is Germany, where the authorities have not yet let him go, so he is currently staying with a surrogate family in Poland. According to him, he will not return to Ukraine because some people there mistakenly consider him a collaborator.
Video: Russia deports more children from Ukraine (July 31, 2024)
Russia deports more children from Ukraine. This time under the pretext of “summer camps” | Video: Telegram/tastefulgournalism_chat