The Russians Took Their Children. These Mothers Went and Got Them Back.

NYT WORLD: The Russians Took Their Children. These Mothers Went and Got Them Back.
By Carlotta Gall, Oleksandr Chubko and Daniel Berehulak
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 8, 2023 at 03:00AM

Making a nerve-wracking 3,000-mile journey from Ukraine, into Russia-occupied territory, and back again, a group of mothers managed to recover their children from the custody of the Russian authorities.

For weeks after Russian troops forcibly removed Natalya Zhornyk’s teenage son from his school last fall, she had no idea where he was or what had happened to him.
Then came a phone call.
“Mom, come and get me,” said her son, Artem, 15. He had remembered his mother’s phone number and borrowed the school director’s cellphone.
Ms. Zhornyk made him a promise: “When the fighting calms down, I will come.”
Artem and a dozen schoolmates had been loaded up by Russian troops and transferred to a school farther inside Russian-occupied Ukraine.
While Ms. Zhornyk was relieved to know where he was being held, reaching him would not be easy. They were now on different sides of the front line of a full-blown war, and border crossings from Ukraine into Russian-occupied territory were closed.

Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/world/europe/ukrainian-children-mothers-russia.html