Last week, the Save Ukraine team successfully freed six children who had endured the horrors of Russian occupation as part of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative.

One of the rescued children is 14-year-old Diana from the Donetsk region. She has spent most of her life under occupation. The children at her school were required to arrive by 7:30 a.m. and sing the Russian national anthem, regardless of the weather. The educational agenda at school was designed to cultivate soldiers prepared to fight at any cost. Even primary school children were trained to march and shoot rifles.

In the school attended by 12-year-old Arsen, Russian propaganda dominated the classroom. Teachers showed propaganda films and taught children distorted versions of Russian history. However, homework was never checked. Russian-run schools in occupied territories are not set up to educate but to isolate children from their parents and indoctrinate them with the so-called Russian world ideology.

Sixteen-year-old Vitalii refused to join the Movement of the First, so he often skipped classes. It likely saved him from being taken to a nearby town for military registration, which happened to his peers. Fortunately, Vitalii and his parents escaped to Ukrainian-controlled territory before he could be mobilized.

The family of 14-year-old Artur could have left earlier, but the Russians deliberately delayed issuing passports to children, giving them only to adults. Such a tactic used children as a human shield, preventing families from leaving the temporarily occupied territories (TOT). When the occupiers abducted Artur’s mother, the danger became too great. The family had no choice but to flee immediately.

Each of these teenagers endured harrowing trials in their own homes, occupied by the Russians. Every day, they risked being separated from their parents if they refused to attend Russian-run schools. They could have been taken away and sent to an orphanage by the occupiers at any moment.

Thanks to the coordinated efforts of our team and the support of our partners — #WeAreAllUkrainians, Ron Wahid, the Humanity Foundation, the Ukrainian Child Rights Network, and the Joint Coordination Center for Search and Release — these children now have a chance at a happy and free future.

Every rescued child is another step toward humanity triumphing over darkness.