During the occupation of the city of Kherson, Denys Berezhny was taken to a camp in the Crimea. No one asked if the boy wanted to go there. When the Russians came to his home, he refused to leave. But he was told irrevocably: “We don’t care, we don’t want to hear anything.” Denys’ parents, who cannot hear or speak, were in shock because they could not argue with the armed Russians.

Then, the boy was forcibly taken away on a lyceum bus to the Kherson River port. Russians promised that it would only be two weeks of rest, and he would return home. Then, the children were transported to Oleshki, where they waited more than 3 hours for a bus to take them to the Crimean camp. That is how Denis ended up in the “Druzhba” sanatorium in Yevpatoria.

The former Ukrainian Berkut servant Valery Astakhov, who escaped in 2014, was responsible for security in this camp. From the first days, he tried to break all the Ukrainian children to force them to be on Russia’s side. He gathered all the newcomers together and threatened that Ukraine would be completely taken over. He forbade mentioning Ukraine at all within the camp. If the children did not obey, they were threatened with expulsion and sent to walk back.

Denis witnessed that they were told that Ukraine is all Russian land and will always belong to Russians, and the Ukrainian nation will become a slave and must be completely absorbed. At 8 in the morning, the Russian national anthem was constantly played for the children.
Astakhov took some of them to personal conversations, in which he psychologically pressured them. After such meetings, the children returned completely obedient with a different position and were afraid to mention or tell what they talked about with Astakhov. And after three weeks, the checkpoints on the border with Crimea were closed.

Denys also said that children were forced to listen to “conversations about important things,” where the Russians told their version of the history of Ukraine. If the children were seen with symbols of Ukraine on some stuff or clothes, they were generally burned to scare off others. In the camp’s medical center, the most disobedient children were locked up in an isolation ward.

Denis has diabetes, and the boy constantly needs insulin. But when he told the camp’s medical center about his illness and the need to be examined and to buy more insulin, he was told to wait until the medicine ran out completely. A month after that, it turned out that the boy had to undergo prophylaxis with droppers.

Denis needs to have his blood vessels cleaned once every six months, but it was more difficult this time than usual. First, the boy was taken to a hospital in Yevpatoria, which is several hours away, and then he stayed in a hospital in the city of Simferopol for three weeks. Denis’s hands and feet begin to numb if these procedures are not completed on time.

In December 2022, all the children from “Druzhba” were relocated to another camp – “Luchystiy”. In February, older student children from the camps, such as Denys Berezhny, began to be allocated to educational institutions on the occupied peninsula. Again, they were not asked where they wanted to go but were sent to study where there were free places.

Denis entered the local maritime technological college in Kerch. He was very nervous in a new, unfamiliar place; his blood pressure jumped above 150. In addition, the boy was forced to sign a stack of new documents – about the dormitory, food, and scholarship.

So he studied until the end of the school year, but he wanted to return home and study where he liked, not where he was forced. Denis was 17 years old at that time. And they constantly demanded that he get a Russian passport.

And unexpectedly, a friend wrote to Denys that there was an opportunity to get home thanks to the team from Save Ukraine. Then Berezhny called the Save Ukraine hotline from a Russian number and gave all the information about himself. Our volunteers contacted him. He did not see his parents for ten months, and they could not go to pick up their son.

Therefore, Save Ukraine lawyers made a power of attorney for the boy’s friend’s mother. When Denys found out she was coming for him, he just jumped for joy. At the Russian border, FSB officers caught up with the boy and interrogated him for a long time. They double-checked the phone.
At the border to Ukraine, taking a heavy bag in his arms, Denis shouted: “Glory to Ukraine.”