“The sun was just coming out. And then, bang. The ceiling falls on me. I got up, I was very muffled. Sasha was already on the floor. Everyone was running past him, running to the basement. I fell on his lap, crying and screaming: Sasha, get up, wake up! But Sasha was silent.”

16-year-old Karina met a full-scale war together with her two brothers in the most violent neighborhood of Mariupol. The girl’s brother, Sasha, suffered leg paralysis after a russian attack on civilian homes. The wounded boy was taken to the hospital by neighbors and after that, Sasha lost contact with them for a long time, as he ended up in occupied Donetsk.

This is just one short fragment of the investigative documentary Children for Putin, which tells the horrific stories of the Group of 31, children who were taken to russia from the now-occupied Mariupol last May and have not been able to return. Among them is Pylyp Holovnya, who lives in the family of the russian presidential commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova.

The film by journalist Olesya Bida and director Vitaliy Havura powerfully reveals the “behind-the-scenes” mechanisms of forced deportation of Ukrainian children to russia and the occupied territories.

The Save Ukraine team was honored to become a media partner of this important film. After all, we have already managed to bring home 128 Ukrainian children and continue to fight for the liberation of as many young Ukrainians from russian captivity as possible.

We invite everyone to watch the English version of this very important film, which is already available on YouTube.

In the meantime, we are waiting for the premiere of the Ukrainian version of Children for Putin, which will take place soon.