When the occupation began, 17-year-old Vladyslav from the Kherson region categorically refused to study under the Russian curriculum. But Vlad, along with other Ukrainian teenagers, was taken to the village of Lazurne in the Kherson region — and forcibly enrolled in a naval academy. The conditions were harsh: constant psychological pressure and the imposition of Russian ideology. 

Vlad firmly refused a Russian passport. And one day he did something the occupiers clearly did not expect: he openly tore the Russian flag from the flagpole and told them that he was Ukrainian. 

The punishment was immediate. The boy was placed in solitary confinement for 5 days. It was a dark room with barred windows, where Vlad was threatened with a straitjacket, a psychiatric hospital, and pills that would “suppress his enthusiasm.” All of this — against a 17-year-old child who refused to renounce his country. 

When his mother tried to bring her son home, the pressure shifted to her. FSB officers subjected her to a humiliating polygraph interrogation, while Vlad was escorted to interrogation with a foul-smelling stranger’s hat pulled over his eyes — as though he were a hardened criminal. 

Nevertheless, despite all the intimidation and threats, on May 29, 2023, with the help of the Save Ukraine team, Vladyslav was able to return to Ukraine.