Another 24 children from the Kherson region returned home on Monday after being illegally transported to the territory of Russia, the Ukrainian authorities reported, reports CNN.

“Today we received them in Kherson in order to communicate with them and present them with nice gifts,” Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, reported on Telegram.

“It was one of the most difficult rescue missions. The Russians interrogated the children for 13 hours and then forced them to participate in propaganda material,” he said.

CNN could not independently confirm this claim.

However, a February report by the U.S. State Department’s Yale Humanitarian Research Laboratory, Conflict Monitor, said Moscow was involved in an extensive network of camps where children underwent “political re-education.”

“The main thing is that now the children are at home with their families. They dared to live, they dared to be happy again,” said Prokuduin and added that “we are grateful to the volunteers of the “Save Ukraine” BF, who made incredible efforts.” that you save the little Ukrainians from Russian captivity.”

“We will certainly return home all Ukrainians illegally detained by Russia!” he said, but did not share additional details about this “rescue mission.”

It comes after a group of 31 Ukrainian children were reunited with their families over the weekend after months of being taken from their homes and transported to Russian-occupied territory.

Allegations of large-scale forced deportation of children from Ukraine are the basis of the International Criminal Court’s war crimes charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin and high-ranking Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova.

The Office of the President of Ukraine recently estimated that the total number of Ukrainian children forcibly removed from Ukraine is at least 20,000. The Russian denies any illegal actions and says that he is taking the Ukrainian children to a safe place.

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