#russian occupied crimea

[tomorrowusa]

Crimea has been under Russian occupation since 2014. The war with Ukraine began that year, it was expanded this year. 

So Olga Valeeva, recently crowned Mrs Queen Beauty - Crimea 2022, got into trouble with Russian overlords for singing a Ukrainian song.

A Crimean beauty queen has been fined 40,000 Russian rubles (around $680) by occupying Russian authorities for singing the patriotic Ukrainian song “Chervona Kalyna,” according to Russian state media and pro-Russian regional authorities.  

[ ... ]

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Crimea said in a video that it identified a video online in which “two girls sang a song that is the battle anthem of an extremist organization.”  

It said that the pair were detained on suspicion of “committing illegal actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as publicly displaying prohibited symbols.” 

“Chervona Kalyna” dates back to the 1870s. In Ukrainian the song is called «Ой у лузі червона калина».

Shortly after the Russians invaded, Andriy Khlyvnyuk (Андрій  Хливнюк) of the band BoomBox (Бумбокс) made this short video of himself singing part of it a cappella.

It’s gotten over 953,000 views on YouTube so far.

But the Andriy Khlyvnyuk vid has been remixed numerous times. The remixes with the original have easily gotten over 10 million views.

My favorite remix is by Foma Daemon – perhaps a fan of Prince Daemon Targaryen. After the remix we hear a child singing it for the last 20 seconds of the vid.

This might be considered a remix. Singers from the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre gave a live performance of it in Lithuania to a large audience. The black and white pictures on the screen in back which are shown before the seven singers join in seem to be from Lithuania’s short struggle with the USSR in 1990 when the Baltic states regained independence.

Even if you don’t understand the lyrics, you’ll easily recognize the song after hearing it just a couple of times.

It’s a great tune – and cheers to Olga Valeeva for daring to sing it! 

[aspiringbogwitch]

Cyber units of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence attacked the tax system of Russia and managed to destroy the entire database and its backup copies. The intelligence adds that Russia will not be able to resuscitate its tax system fully.

Source: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine

Quote: "During the special operation, military spies managed to break into one of the well-protected key central servers of the Federal Taxation Service (FTS of the Russian Federation), and then into more than 2,300 of its regional servers throughout Russia, as well as on the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea.

As a result of the cyberattack, all servers were infected with malware...

The Russians have been unsuccessfully trying to restore the work of the Russian tax authorities for the fourth day in a row. The experts say the paralysis in the work of the Federal Taxation Service of the Russian Federation will last at least a month. At the same time, resuscitation of the tax system of the aggressor state in full is impossible."

[mothmvn]

i hope today's strikes spoil Crimea as a tourist destination for russians. i wish we could've done this at the start of the summer holiday season, but maybe it's better to do it when the beaches are full of tanning invaders — front-row seat for them for Ukraine's display of "get the fuck out"

[greencheekconure27]

"Russian Oil Depot Burned in Temporarily Occupied Crimea"

[suratan-zir]

Yes, they have done it, the act of ecocide. It was predicted almost a year ago when it was first reported that the Russians had mined the dam. They've been preparing for it. Over the past few months, they have been draining the reservoir while simultaneously filling all reservoirs in Crimea, because blowing up this dam means no more fresh water supply to Crimea. So everyone who claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine to secure fresh water for Crimea can now go fuck themselves.

Of course they first claimed it was Ukraine's doing. Although some occupiers already happily admit that it was russia who blew it up, and call for blowing up more of Ukraine's infrastructure.

It's typical russian scorched earth tactics. Blowing up the dam can possibly prevent the Ukrainian army landing on the left bank of the Dnipro, and it frees russian troops from the left bank, meaning they can be sent as reinforcement to other front lines, for example, in the Donetsk region.

It is probably the greatest ecological catastrophe since Chornobyl, with thousands of people affected, left homeless, entire villages destroyed probably forever. But the russians don't give two fucks about that. They don't care about any life. Their main objective is not necessarily to claim the land for themselves, but rather to ensure it is not Ukrainian. If they cannot have it, they want to leave it uninhabitable.

Edit: not sure this is a new video, so removed it for now

[vyvilha]

russian police in occupied crimea has illegally detained indigenous rights activist lutfiye zudieva. she was among very few people documenting russian persecution against crimean tatars

[zvaigzdelasas]

A painful reality check shows the 600-mile-long Ukrainian-Russian front in a figurative and literal freeze, draining Ukrainian resources and lives without much prospect for change in the foreseeable future. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive of the past six months exacted a huge cost in casualties and matériel, but barely nudged the front lines. Ukraine’s top military commander has said the fight is at a “stalemate” — a notion deemed taboo not long ago — and only an unlikely technological breakthrough by one side or the other could break it. [...]

The way things are going, “Ukraine will for the foreseeable future harbor Europe’s most dangerous geopolitical fault line,” [...] an endless conflict that deepens Russia’s alienation from the West, enshrines Putinism and delays Ukraine’s integration into Europe. That, at least, is the bleak prognosis if victory in the war continues to be defined in territorial terms, specifically the goal of driving Russia out of all the Ukrainian lands it occupied in 2014 and over the past 22 months, including Crimea and a thick wedge of southeastern Ukraine, altogether about a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. But regaining territory is the wrong way to imagine the best outcome. True victory for Ukraine is to rise from the hell of the war as a strong, independent, prosperous and secure state, firmly planted in the West.[...]

the only way to find out if Mr. Putin is serious about a cease-fire, and whether one can be worked out, is to give it a try. Halting Russia well short of its goals and turning to the reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine would be lasting tributes to the Ukrainians who have made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the existence of their nation. And no temporary armistice would forever preclude Ukraine from recovering all of its land.

With U.S. and European aid to Ukraine now in serious jeopardy, the Biden administration and European officials are quietly shifting their focus from supporting Ukraine’s goal of total victory over Russia to improving its position in an eventual negotiation to end the war, according to a Biden administration official and a European diplomat based in Washington. Such a negotiation would likely mean giving up parts of Ukraine to Russia. The White House and Pentagon publicly insist there is no official change in administration policy — that they still support Ukraine’s aim of forcing Russia’s military completely out of the country. [...]

The administration official told POLITICO Magazine this week that much of this strategic shift to defense is aimed at shoring up Ukraine’s position in any future negotiation. “That’s been our theory of the case throughout — the only way this war ends ultimately is through negotiation,” said the official, a White House spokesperson who was given anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.[...]

“Those discussions [about peace talks] are starting, but [the administration] can’t back down publicly because of the political risk” to Biden, said a congressional official who is familiar with the administration’s thinking and who was granted anonymity to speak freely.[...]

The European diplomat based in Washington said that the European Union is also raising the threat of expediting Ukraine’s membership in NATO to “put the Ukrainians in the best situation possible to negotiate” with Moscow. That is a flashpoint for Putin, who is believed to be mainly interested in a strategic deal with Washington under which Ukraine will not enter NATO. [...]

For most of the conflict GOP critics have accused Biden of moving too slowly to arm the Ukrainians with the most sophisticated weaponry, such as M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, long-range precision artillery and F-16 fighter jets. In an interview in July Zelenskyy himself said the delays “provided Russia with time to mine all our lands and build several lines of defense.” [...]

The Ukrainians themselves are engaged in what is becoming a very public debate about how long they can hold out against Putin. With Ukraine running low on troops as well as weapons, Zelenskyy’s refusal to consider any fresh negotiations with Moscow is looking more and more politically untenable at home. The Ukrainian president, seeking to draft another half million troops, is facing rising domestic opposition from his military commander in chief, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko.

So what was all that for then [27 Dec 23]

[thegirlwhohid]

Imagine waking up in the morning and the first thing you know is that russia committed another war crime/ecocide/crime against humanity. The reservoir cools down Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and gives water to the North Crimean Canal (hew, remember how russian claimed that they attacked Ukraine because they needed water to the occupied Crimea?). Hundred of villages and towns will be drowned just in a few hours. Thousands of people will lose their homes. 

I can’t even start to describe how vile it is, how angry and heartbroken I am right now. 

russia delenda est

[derehono]

24.02.2022.

The day that changed my life forever.

24th of February 2022 should have been my usual day. No, not usual. A wonderful day. I should have been checked with a doctor, gave notice to teachers in high school of my absence, and then fly away on vacation, my parents wanted it so much.

On 23rd of February 2022 I felt happy. I had a secure, happy life, preparing to finals, hanging out with my friends, already having an offer from university.

Until 5AM 24.02.2022.

I had not a single class in my school since then.

I haven’t seen my friend group in 2 years.

I didn’t have my finals.

We did not have that vacation.

“Daughter, wake up. This old psychotic man attacked us. We are leaving.”

That was my first photo of the day, trying sarcastically keep myself normal. I remember that actual emptiness, reading my classmates texts about how their windows were shaking because of explosions, the sky was orange. They sent that video.

He called it “a special military operation”.

I collected random clothes, some hobby stuff just to keep my sanity, grabbed my pet, emptied my safety locker. I was scared that russians would intrude into our home and steal all my savings, so I throw away key to that lock. This key became my symbol of war, I have never found it even after return.

When I with my parents and pet got out of flat to car we heard for the very first time air raid siren. We would hear so many more of them, we would learn to differentiate them, but then we were confused.

It was my second photo. People were going away. Foot, cars, bicycles. I remember such a surreal picture. Some moms were carrying their toddlers, one woman was carrying a bucket of water with turtles, other people were carrying cages with parrots, with dogs, with cats, with exotic pets despite air raid siren, temperature, rain. Everyone was so confused and scared.

Few days later the road we were riding was occupied. Bridges destroyed. Factories burnt. Supermarkets demolished. Houses in ruins. Road in holes. On the side of the road burnt cars with “DO NOT TOUCH, POSSIBLY EXPLOSIVE”. That gut wrenching feeling seeing photos of dead bodies and recognising the place.

But back then it was still lively, not a road of death. I remember reading news then. First victims, first shelling. Invasion from East. Invasion from Kharkiv region. Invasion from Crimea. Invasion from Chernihiv. Invasion from Zhytomyr. And we were in Zhytomyr region at that moment. Explosions in Kyiv. The border was destroyed.

I felt nothing. Just emptiness.

This precious girl was keeping my head cool all the road. She was also scared and irritated, but she was so strong, such an amazing girl. I am so proud of her.

We were heading to my grandparents who lived closer to West Ukraine, so we would be safer. The road that takes usually just 4 hours but that time it took 13 hours. 13 hours of driving exhausted and nerved. We saw soldiers, trucks, jets, how barricades were built, signs were removed.

But we made it. We were lucky. Lucky to be alive, to have family alive and mostly close to West, further from russia. Even though, part of my extended family still was under occupation in Chernihiv region, suffering from such close border with belarus.

When we arrived, we were just silent. Then collected mattresses for shelter, asked grandpa to grab some patrol (we knew that they would definitely destroy reservoirs and literally next day the started doing that), and just fell asleep in something that we arrived in, being so scared.

That day I also cut ties with russian friend who I am shamed to admit having. He was proving me that this is just a military operation, no one would be harmed.

Then, arrived spring that I will never forget but at the same time never remember. I remember 10 people in one floor house. I remember the whistle of rocket that woke us up. I remember sirens. I remember news. I remember losing hope. I remember first photos after deoccupation of Kyiv region. I remember how forgotten friend of my dad suddenly called him saying that his city is fully destroyed, his neighbour right on his eyes was exploded attempting to get into the car and evacuate.

I remember my first mental breakdown. How I was crying in the darkness, but quietly so no one would notice.

We were able to return home three months later. But we are just lucky. Someone would never return. Someone is not even alive to see their home again. Someone’s home is forever destroyed.

I was lucky that I have secured my place at foreign university before war, but my whole family is still in Ukraine.

War is not over at all. 20% of Ukraine is occupied. So many displaced civilians, so many deaths. No one could even count, we do not have any access to bodies. Only way to identify is to deoccupy and find mass graves. No other means. Children are suffering from PTSD even in such a young age. Almost in every city, big or small, you would find graveyards covered in Ukrainian flag, grave of the soldier.

Maybe media does not talk that much of us, but it doesn’t mean that everything is alright. Avdiivka is destroyed, right now operation searching for people under debris of the civilian house after attack is undergoing.

And this is happening all the time.

Who was punished for Olenivka? Who was punished for destruction of Kakhovka Dam? Who was punished for all fully destroyed cities? Who was responsible for all that absolutely atrocious videos torturing Ukrainian soldiers?

Please, remember, Ukraine is still on fire. People are still dying. Soldiers cannot even counterattack because they do not have enough ammo, just for protection. Information war is also waging, sharing all that misinformation, Nazi narratives, russian propaganda.

Remember.

Help.

Share.

russia is a terrorist state.

Glory to Ukraine.

Glory to the Heroes.

[pettania]

On February 20, 2014, Russian soldiers with weapons but without identification marks invaded Ukrainian Crimea. Soon, Russia occupied the peninsula, began armed aggression in the east of Ukraine, and in 2022 — a full-scale war.

Ukraine has been fighting for freedom, justice, and peace for ten years. We fight to liberate Crimea and every Ukrainian village, town, and city. But most importantly, we fight for people who are subjected to terror and intimidation in the temporarily occupied territories yet resist Russia's suppression and wait for Ukraine.

We are at our home, we are with our people, with our dream of a peaceful future and duty to protect what's ours. No one will take our freedom. Because we know what we are fighting for.

[wormbussy]

if you're a boycott Eurovision person just block or unfollow me, I'd like to be able to follow the tags I follow without it being clogged with moralfags trying to guilt trip people into getting on their bandwagon.

See, at Eurovision when a country does a thing you don't like, you let them join and then boo them until they leave themselves. Which is probably what's going to happen to Israel this year, not for the first time, and certainly not exclusively to Israel.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, have since been occupying a third of their territory, and hosted the next year. Even Georgia didn't boycott that year, but trolled the Russians into banning them that year by sending a song called "We Don't Wanna Put In".

Russia invaded Crimea in 2013, and in 2014 passed the foreign agents law and gay propaganda law, in-between occupying more bits of Ukraine. In 2014 the hair-conjoined twins that got memed by John Oliver that one time got booed so hard the EBU had to invent boo-dampening technology the next year. Of course Conchita Wurst won in 2014, which the Russian broadcaster had to show in full or they would lose broadcasting rights, despite Conchita Wurst *existing* probably counting as "gay propaganda".

For that matter, Ukraine won in 2016 and hosted the next year. Russia didn't even boycott, they sent fascist Tiny Tim as their entry, knowing she had entered Crimea from Russia which would force the Ukrainians to ban her from entering Ukraine to compete while looking like lunatics for doing so.

The ESC wasn't even going to ban the Russian broadcaster from competing in 2022. Initially they were like nah it's non political so it's chill (not to mention it had been 8 years), until about 6 countries including Sweden wrote to the EBU saying "if Russia's in, we're out", and then hours later the EBU decided you could have a contest without Russia but not without Sweden. Not because there's some rule in a song contest that says "you're not allowed to kill people or we won't let you sing".

There is a *WAY* these things are done.

I am perfectly fine with people looking at the way things are and going you know what, I'd rather give it a miss this year. Nobody is forcing you at gunpoint to watch a song contest, block the tag and see you in a month.

But brigading the eurovision tag with this moralizing bullshit about how nobody is allowed to enjoy a show that includes 42 entries that aren't Israel or else we're all genocidal (((zionists))), while turning off notes to your posts so nobody can respond to you, is toddler behaviour.

[she-is-ovarit]

Ukrainian saboteurs who are alleged to have poisoned and killed 46 Russian soldiers are on the run in annexed Crimea after a shoot-out with police, a local report says. Two young saboteurs who had poisoned members of the Russian military in Simferopol and Bakhchisarai fled when authorities attempted to detain them in Crimea, Telegram channel Kremlin Snuffbox said on Tuesday. The police went to apprehend the female suspects at a private house in Yalta but were surprised to find them "well armed" and "well prepared," the post said.

The saboteurs opened fire and fled the scene in a car, and authorities do not know their current whereabouts. Three officers were killed and two were wounded in the shoot-out, a source in Russia's Federal Security Service told the Telegram channel. It was reported in December that members of a Ukrainian partisan group called Crimean Combat Seagulls poisoned and killed 24 Russian soldiers after lacing their vodka with arsenic and strychnine. At the time, Snuffbox quoted unnamed sources as saying that "two nice girls" tricked the unit in Simferopol, Crimea, into drinking the vodka, per the Kyiv Post translation. In another incident, saboteurs killed 18 and hospitalized 14 Russian personnel in Bakhchisarai, Crimea, by putting arsenic and rat poison in pies and beer, Kremlin Snuffbox previously reported. Russian military personnel stationed in Crimea have been asked not to take any food or any drinks from strangers and to detain any suspicious young women who approach them to prevent further incidents of poisoning. Business Insider could not independently verify the report. There were also been reports of two mass poisonings of Russian troops in Mariupol in 2023. Acts of sabotage by Ukrainian resistance and partisan groups are used to harass Russian soldiers in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014, and other occupied territories, and supply intelligence for Ukrainian strikes on military installations.

[mapsontheweb]

Russian propaganda map on the future of Ukraine

Published by Dmitry Medvedev (deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia) on March 4, 2024.

by hunmapper

Medvedev defined all territories on the left bank of the Dnipro River, and many on the right bank, as supposedly "integral" to Russia and within its "strategic historical borders." Russian forces currently occupy only a part of the eastern (left) bank of Ukraine but do not occupy any territory on the right bank of Ukraine. He presented his lecture against the backdrop of a self-created fantasy map of eastern Europe, depicting parts of western Ukraine under Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian control. The map shows Ukraine existing as a rump state only within the borders of Kyiv Oblast and the rest of modern-day Ukraine as part of Russia — well beyond the areas that Russian forces currently occupy, encompassing Crimea and the four partially occupied oblasts Medvedev claimed that the influence of sovereign great powers, like Russia, extends beyond their geographic borders, reiterating an earlier statement by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin that "Russia's borders do not end anywhere" Additionally, he alleged that a state's "strategic borders," distinct from its geographical borders, depend on “how strong and sovereign” the state and its authorities are. The more "powerful" a state is, the “further its strategic frontiers extend beyond its state borders” and the larger the state’s sphere of “economic, political, and socio-cultural influence”

[redjaybathood]

This is very important. In Crimea, russians, again, start to use fake criminal investigations to incarcerate Crimean Tatars. This is not new - but it is the new mass wave of searches on trumped-up charges and arrests.

Translation of the thread below.

1/9 Mass searches in Crimea

10 Crimean Tatar families. 10 homes, where russian "security forces" broke into at dawn. What do we know about the newe wave of mass searches on the Crimean peninsula? 

2/9 4 activists of "Crimean Solidarity", Bakhchysarai, as well as 6 religion leaders and activists from Dzhankoy district, became victims of the rampage of the occupatoinal forces.

Among them, the former Imam Remzi Kurtnezirov, who has a severe disability.

 3/9 "Security forces" behaved themselves very rudely, despite the presence of elderly and small children.

Over the course of the searches, they took documents, tech, and literature. Moreover, the relatieves of the detained people state that the books were planted.

 4/9 FSB agents, when asked by the relatives, replied that they are looking for weapons and illicit chemicals. 

The men are charged with Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - the same one that the Hizb ut-Tahrir cases are fabricated under.

5/9 After the searches, Crimean Tatars were taken to FSB HQ in Simferopol. 

Currently, some of them were allowed a lawyer but the pre-trial detention measure was not choosen yet.

6/9 Names of the detained: Rustem Osmanov, Aziz Azizov, Memet Lumanov, Mustafa Abduramanov, Remzi Kurtnezirov, Vakhid Mustafayev, Ali Mamutov, Arsen Kashka, Enver Khalilayev, Nariman Ametov

7/9  

According to preliminary information, this is the third largest wave of searches on the alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir. 

The most massive searches took place in March 2019, when 24 Crimean Tatars were targeted.

8/9 CrimeaSOS analyst Yevhen Yaroshenko notes that detentions in the "Hizb ut-Tahrir cases" in Crimea are intensified approximately once every six months.

This is due to the targeted plan for certain categories of "cases" that intelligence officers have to fulfill.

9/9 Repressions against Crimean Tatars are one of the principles of russia's criminal policy on the peninsula. 

In order to stop the occupiers, we must respond firmly to every manifestation of lawlessness and effectively oppose it

[mariacallous]

Six months into the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, in September 2022, the director of Liza Batsura’s college arrived at the dormitory where Batsura lived and told the students to pack up their things: They were going to Crimea. If the students refused, they would be put in the basement, Batsura said, speaking through a translator. The director gave no further explanation.

The next evening, they were taken to a camp called “Friendship” in Crimea, which was occupied by Russia in 2014. Although she couldn’t have known it at the time, Batsura—now 16 years old—was one of almost 20,000 children the Ukrainian government estimates have been deported or forcibly displaced to Russia. Only 388 have been returned.

Initially, the prospect of a couple of weeks by the sea didn’t sound so bad. But Batsura quickly began to realize that that wouldn’t be the case. The food was terrible, the days were long, and the children were pressured to sing Russian songs, including the national anthem, which made her very uncomfortable.

Foreign Policy is unable to independently verify Batsura’s account, but her experience closely tracks with the findings of investigations by the United Nations as well as researchers at Yale School of Public Health and other human rights groups who have documented a “systematic” effort to relocate and reeducate thousands of Ukrainian children over the course of the war. She also recounted her story to Reuters as part of an extensive investigation into the deportations.

Batsura was one of five Ukrainian teenagers who visited Washington last month with representatives of Save Ukraine, a Ukraine-based nonprofit that helps to rescue Ukrainian children from Russia and the territories it occupies. They stoically recounted the stories of their abductions again and again for journalists, members of Congress, and attendees at public events.

It was the group’s first visit to Washington. Batsura felt like she was in a movie, she said.

With long limbs and round cheeks, the teenagers filed into the conference room of a Washington-based nonprofit with their minders from Save Ukraine for an interview with Foreign Policy. Once the Wi-Fi password had been secured and the bathroom located, they began to tell their stories.

They were teenagers like any other you’d see hanging out with friends at a cafe or shopping mall. Yet they were also victims of Moscow’s large-scale deportation of Ukrainian children—a potential war crime and the reason that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, in March 2023.

Like Batsura, they all hail from regions of eastern Ukraine that were quickly occupied by Russian forces in the early days of the war. They recount being coerced or forced, sometimes at gunpoint, to go with Russian forces, and they were taken to schools and summer camps where they were held for several months and faced pressure to accept Russian citizenship.

In many instances, Ukraine’s most vulnerable children have borne the brunt of Russian deportation. Before the war, Ukraine had one of the highest rates of child institutionalization in Europe, with more than 100,000 children living in residential institutions. The vast majority have living parents but were placed in institutions because of poverty, difficult family circumstances, or because the child had a disability, according to Human Rights Watch.

The deportations have been carried out in plain sight. Early in the war, Putin signed a decree making it easier for Ukrainian children to be adopted and to be given Russian citizenship. Lvova-Belova herself claims to have adopted a teenager from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and she has spoken publicly about her efforts to Russify him. In November, a BBC investigation found that a 2-year old girl who went missing from a children’s home in Kherson when she was just 10 months old had been adopted by 70-year-old member of the Russian parliament, Sergey Mironov.

Lvova-Belova has made a number of visits to institutions holding Ukrainian children, including to a college in the occupied Ukrainian city of Henichesk, where Batsura had been transferred from Crimea and placed in a culinary arts program.

The dormitory where Batsura was placed was freezing cold at night, she said, and the teenagers were forbidden to close the doors to their rooms. Russian troops patrolled the halls.

Lvova-Belova offered the children 100,000 rubles, roughly $1,000, and the opportunity to study at a college in Russia on the condition that they remain there. Batsura refused. Officials tried to find her a foster family, and she feared she would be sent to a remote region of Russia and would never be able to return to Ukraine.

For eight months while she was in Russian custody, Batsura had been unable to contact her mother, but she learned through a friend that her mother was working with Save Ukraine and applying for a passport so that she could travel to Russia and collect her.

With the border to Russia closed since the invasion, families face a daunting overland journey through wartime Ukraine, traveling into Poland, Belarus, and then Russia and—in Batsura’s case—down into occupied Ukrainian territory.

In some instances, children are turned over to their relatives without too much difficulty once the family members arrive to collect them, but the Russian authorities have also been known to present obstacles, said Olha Yerokhina, a spokesperson for Save Ukraine. The organization has helped families retrieve 240 children to date.

Officials at the school told Batsura that the journey was too arduous and that her friend was giving her false hope that her mother would ever arrive. “I didn’t believe them, and I kept telling myself that ‘No, my mom can do it, my mom will come,’” she said.

In May 2023, Batsura was rescued by her mother and now lives with her in Kyiv, where she is working with psychologists to process her experience. She is back in school and describes her hobbies as writing poems and making TikTok videos.

I asked her, given the atrocities that Putin has been accused of committing in Ukraine and during his presidency, how she felt about the fact that it was experiences like hers that had led the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for the Russian leader.

Yerokhina, who acted as our translator, interrupted to say that because she was rescued after the court order was issued, Batsura had likely missed the news about the ICC arrest warrant.

After Yerokhina explained the court’s decision, Batsura said, “It’s just.”

[captain-price-unofficially]

Fires are raging at Feodosia in occupied Crimea, following Ukrainian strikes against what is reported to be Russian and Iranian vessels carrying munitions; the Ukrainian Air Force is claiming to have sunk the Novocherkassk (BDK-46), a Ropucha-class amphibious landing ship.