The mother quickly peels cucumbers. Most of the time, she cooks for a whole company. At her house, you can find everything in large quantities, whether it's shoes in the hall or chairs in the living room. On the wall near the kitchen door, overlapping pencil lines show how much each child has grown. Even the boy from Ukraine.
Since their own children left home, the mother and her husband have served as foster parents for more and more children at a time. They have space, and the Russian authorities know it. “Take a child from Donbass”, That’s what she was told on the phone, says the mother, a woman with a round face and a big smile.
The presence of Ukrainian children in Russian families is a difficult subject. The mother absolutely wants to remain anonymous. She explains that the foster boy comes from an orphanage in the Donetsk region and that sometimes he misses his friends. And yes, he has a weakness for Lionel Messi, he dreams of becoming a footballer. What is his name, how old is he? Not a word about it.
The host mother sits on a chair, the sofa is usually occupied by the children watching television. While watching the news, she heard that Ukrainian children were now being sent back from Russia to their home country. An idea that torments her. “It’s because we already love him, she says of the boy who has lived with them for over two years. If he has to go back now, where will he go?”
More than 19,500 minors transferred
kyiv accuses the Kremlin of transferring more than 19,500 unaccompanied children from Ukraine to Russia. A figure that Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian children's rights commissioner, describes as “faux”, but it provides no other. The International Criminal Court therefore issued an arrest warrant against him, as well as against Vladimir Putin. Both are accused of deporting Ukrainians from their homes, particularly children.
Many of the latter are here because their parents have died, or could no longer take care of them. In the days leading up to the offensive by Putin's soldiers, they were put on buses and trains with other residents of eastern Ukraine, women, children and the elderly, and transferred to Russia.
A second group of lost children consists of those who were sent by their own parents to Russian summer camps, to keep them away from the fighting. Parents hoped they would be safe there for a while, but some simply did not return on the scheduled date.
Finally, there are minors who were separated from their loved ones during the fighting or while fleeing.
Putin's children's rights commissioner has rarely given figures, including the following, which date back to the summer of 2023: around 700,000 children would then have been listed as having arrived in Russia, most of them with their parents, but also 1,500 children from orphanages. Additionally, between April and October 2022, 380 Ukrainian children were reportedly placed with Russian foster families, Lvova-Belova wrote in June 2024. What happened next remains unclear.
Today’s “brainwashing”
No one demanded the return of the boy from the Donetsk region. All he knows about his parents is how they died. His father drowned and his mother died of cancer when he was 2 years old. He and his older sister then lived with their grandmother, until the latter died in turn. He has spent the last few years in different families and homes, says the mother.
The two first spoke when the boy was already in Kursk, Russia. The director of his boarding school in Ukraine had evacuated the school in February 2022, so the students were sent to Russia. He didn't want to leave his friends, but in Kursk, the management encouraged him. Shortly after, his mother came to pick him up from the station. He only had a backpack with him. She prepared him some pelmeni [équivalent russe des raviolis].
Yes, it was difficult for her to adapt, she often scolded him. She considers that he was trying to test her patience, he wanted to know if, one day, she would not say to him: “Go back where you came from.” However, some of his friends from Ukraine were now also living with Russian families. He was even ready to celebrate the first anniversary of settling in with his family.
Since then, life has gone on as it has: school, football, homework. Only the propaganda worries the mother of the host family. We are teaching a new subject, entitled “Talking about what matters”. Students often discuss topics related to Putin's “special operation”. “So, how much brainwashing have you been through today?” she sometimes asks him after school. In general, he prefers to remain silent, he does not want to discuss this issue with anyone.
“I think he doesn't want to be seen as the enemy,” she comments. With one finger, the mother draws a line on the living room table. “Our guys crossed the border and started conquering territory. Is it ju
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