A child deported by Russia from Kherson Oblast during the temporary occupation of the region was returned to his family in Ukraine, Dmytro Lubinets reported on April 5 via Telegram.
The boy, Artem, was one of several students from the Oleshkivskyi boarding school in the Kherson region who was deported to Russia.
Artem’s grandmother, who filed a request to return him, said that she immediately went to the boarding school when she heard that students were being forcibly transferred to Russia. Upon her arrival there, she discovered that students were moved from Kherson Oblast to Russia and then to occupied Crimea before being taken to Russian-occupied Skadovsk.
Lubinets urged parents and guardians of missing children to contact the Commissioner’s Office to report the disappearance or deportation of their family members.
At least 19,544 children are confirmed to have been deported by Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, according to the government website Children of War.
Ukraine has managed to return over 300 of these children, with efforts underway to bring more of them back from Russia.
