“Dad, the situation is such that they tell us that they won’t take us back, they will give us to foster families or an orphanage while shelling continues in Donetsk.”

These words will forever remain in his memory. Eugene. Former military man, 39-year-old man lived and worked in Mariupoli, at the plant of Ilyich, when the war broke out. His wife left him, and therefore he raised three children alone: ​​an 8-year-old and 6-year-old daughter and 13-year-old Matviy. On February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he caught him there.

War in Mariupol

After the first days of the war, trying to protect themselves, they ended up with the whole family in a shelter where a total of 140 people lived. The water had already run out – three people died on the rise – and conditions became desperately difficult when Eugene heard his son say, “Daddy, the army says we have to evacuate.” [την περιοχή]”. Going outside, he saw a man who introduced himself as servicemen of the Russian Federation and told them that they wanted to take them to a safe place. They had half an hour to pack their things.

They gathered everything they had and boarded the bus with the others, thinking they were going to evacuate the area. When they got to the checkpoint and the father showed his documents confirming his old status, the soldiers took the family to a back room, telling him that they wanted to explain something about his documents. When he replied that he could not leave the children alone, he was told to find someone to stay with them. Half an hour and we’ll let you go.

Separation

Eugene found someone he knew to take care of the children, hugged them and told them to obey the woman who was with them. He remembers how two cars drove up: one for the children evacuating the territory, and the other for the Ukrainian prisoners. He was then transferred to a nearby location, one of the so-called “filtration camps”, where he was interrogated about his previous military service. Then it was moved to another location. “You don’t even know where you’re going. This will be the end, now the Chechens will cut off your tongues”they called them down the road to scare them. He remembers being taken handcuffed and blindfolded to a prison cell where there were two other men. When, at some point, his scarf came undone, he realized that he was in a temporary detention center in Novoazovsk, an area about 44 kilometers from Mariupol on the border with Russia.

After another interrogation and without explaining anything to anyone, he was taken to Donetsk, to the Department for Combating Organized Crime. They were in a cell of 20 square meters, 48 ​​people, with minimal food and minimal water. “We tried not to breathe, we even tried not to talk, because when you talk, you burn oxygen, and there was no oxygen there.”. After repeated transfers, he ended up in a pre-trial detention center in Olenivka in eastern Ukraine. Everyone who got out of the van was slapped. He didn’t run either. The guard hit him hard on the back. During the next period, he was subjected to forced labor.

The children left at dawn for Moscow

Eugene remembers exactly the day he was released, as usual, giving him all his release certificates. It was May 26th. After leaving, he went to Donetsk for his personal documents. There he was informed that there were no birth certificates for his children.. When asked about the reason, he was told that his children flew off at 5 o’clock in the morning by plane to the Moscow region to rest in Polyany center. The father went into hysterics, unable to believe what was happening. Then he was given the phone number of the social service of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. They informed him that everything was fine and they just wanted to surprise the children who survived the war. He himself managed to talk with his children and then he thought: “Let the children rest after the catacombs so that their mental health recovers. I can’t help them now. I don’t have any money at all.”

Bus with children from Mariupol

This day is also remembered by little Matviy, 13-year-old son of Yevgeny, who tells how his brothers, sisters and other children were taken together from Mariupol, on the road from Donetsk to Rostov, and then on a private plane to the Polyansky Center in Moscow. “I only remember that we passed through Rostov and then took off from Rostov.” He and his sisters had five or six medical examinations. According to the child their day in this center started at 5.00 in the morning, and at 6.30 they did their exercises. Half an hour later they had breakfast, and then they had free time to play outside. Then lunch, sleep, afternoon tea, and then sometimes they had activities like watching movies or needlework. Then dinner and sleep followed. Matviy managed to contact his father via Viber a week after arriving at the center.

At the same time, the 39-year-old began to collect money and constantly communicated, according to him, with his children. However, he mentioned that the children told him that they were forced to go to discos and how they were given some green pills like vitamins.

However, one day something different happened in the Polyany. “Dad expected that they would take us to Donetsk and pick us up from there. But then it turned out that they could not take us to Donetsk because of shelling and alarms. First they told me: “Give you all to a family or an orphanage for a while until dad picks you up? I said that I would not answer until I got through to my father.“, – recalls Matvey. The people who made him this proposal were, according to them, social workers. The 13-year-old boy informed his father about this and explained the situation to him.

Do you love your children very much?

The man heard his child crying to him that he only had five days to go and collect them. The 39-year-old man said he was told by social services that this was not possible and that the child had misunderstood. However, he trusted his child. He then contacted volunteers who helped some of his relatives find their own in Russia. The team decided to help him and made an appointment for the next day, when a car came for him. “At first I did not trust them, but I realized that this is very important for my children”. The car left him at the border. He was given money and water. He cleared customs relatively quickly in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, again answering questions about his position and then reached the Russian border. But even there his path did not open. He was transferred to a separate room. They undressed him and began to ask about the tattoos on his body.. According to him, his belongings were searched, but he said that these people did not pose a danger to him. “Then one saw a photo of the children and asked, “Do you love your children very much?” I said, “Yes, I love them.” – Okay, you can leave. Well, they let me go,” he described.

Reunion and escape

The 39-year-old father arrived at the center where his three children were being held. He characteristically mentioned that the territory is very well guarded, and also met with a representative of the presidential administration there. As he noted, people in the center denied that they would give the children to a foster family. “Later, after I took the children, Matvey called one of the boys who was with him, and the boy confirmed that he was living with foster parents at that time.”

Eugene took the children and immigrated to Riga. As he mentioned his only daughter is psychologically broken and would not risk returning to Ukraine. From the city of Latvia, he gave a detailed taped interview in which he and his son recounted the entire tragic story they had experienced to a member journalist Settlement projectinitiative that records testimonies about Russian war crimes in Ukraine. All of the above information is taken from a transcript of conversations between a man and a journalist.

March 17, International Criminal Court published arrest warrant for vladimir putin hold him responsible for her war crime illegal deportation of the population (children) and his illegal transfer from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.