After 17 months of unrelenting conflict in Ukraine, the result thus far is tens of thousands dead and the most significant refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. News of the conflict ebbs and flows from news feeds, and people’s perspective on the war varies. But what remains constant is the threat to Ukraine’s children as Russia continues its practice of “rehousing” and “reeducating” of the younger generation in its ages-old attempt to annihilate the Ukrainian culture. 

A recent discussion with Nadia Rajsz, a Sullivan County legislator, Glen Spey resident and daughter of Ukrainian emigrees, shed light on this issue. 

Rajsz noted that although the official number of children who have been separated from their families through coercion is about 20,000, the unofficial number is closer to 200,000. These children are trafficked, adopted into Russian families where their identities as Ukrainians are wiped away, or conscripted into military service against their homeland. This practice is a continuation of what happened in 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, when children were taken from their homes for the same purposes, she said. 

Rajsz mentioned an organization called Save Ukraine, which is the only public organization in Ukraine that regularly organizes and successfully conducts rescue missions to return these children to their parents in Ukraine. 

A testimonial from the saveukraineua.org website describes a successful rescue as follows: 

“Prior to the Russian invasion, Tatiana Vlaiko lived in the village of Oleksandrivka, 40 kilometers from Kherson in southern Ukraine. She was working as a cheese molder, raising a 19-year-old son with a disability and a 13-year-old daughter, Lilia. Not a single house in Oleksandrivka has survived the hostilities. 

“Tatyana and her children had to flee their village to Kherson with two bags of clothes after the Russian military bombed their house out. While the family stayed in occupied Kherson, Lilia was sent to a ‘recreation camp’ in Yevpatoria, Crimea, along with many other children. Like other parents of deported children, Tatiana was given no time to think and no choice. Just 11 days after Lilia was taken to Crimea, the Russians announced an ‘evacuation,’ aka a forced displacement of civilians from Kherson, fearing a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Tatiana realized she could no longer bring her daughter back. 

“In late December, Tatiana discovered Save Ukraine and requested assistance. It took a month to plan the repatriation journey. At the end of January, a group of parents embarked on a lengthy trip to reunite with their children after months of separation. They traveled from Kyiv to Poland, then through Belarus, Latvia and Russia, before reaching occupied Crimea. On January 27, they arrived in Yevpatoria. 

“The journey back to Ukraine took about a week. At the Russian border, border guards in Crimea refused to let the bus with the children through. They had to get home through Latvia. The bus got through there without any problems. 

“Lilia was forced to stay with the Russians for 112 days, from October 7, 2022 to January 27, 2023. Now the entire family is staying at one of the Save Ukraine Hope and Healing Centers, recovering from the deeply traumatizing experience.” 

Russia has a long history of trying to annihilate the Ukrainian people and eliminate the Ukrainian culture. The Holodomor was a man-made famine of Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33 during which millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in the “breadbasket of Europe.”

Rajsz believes that Russia must be stopped because if it isn’t, Poland and the Baltic States are next in Russia’s crosshairs. But regardless of whether one agrees with her, Rajsz, a mother and grandmother, asked how desperate one might feel if faced with the taking of one’s own children or grandchildren. 

Whatever one’s views of the war, she urged support of Ukrainian children. More information on the efforts to reclaim trafficked children can be found at www.saveukraineua.org.