Putin tried to make me fight my own people, says teenage orphan abducted from Ukraine
Mariupol kidnap victim who was forced to live in Russia reveals how he escaped the Kremlin’s grip
HAD he been older or less vulnerable, says Ukrainian teenager Bohdan Yermokhin, he “would have set the Kremlin on fire”.
Originally from the city of Mariupol, he was forced to live in Moscow for almost one and a half years after he and 30 other Ukrainian orphans were rounded up by Russian forces and deported against their will. Nicknamed the Mariupol 31, he and his friends had already lived through months of brutal siege as Vladimir Putin’s forces turned their home city to rubble.
When the last pocket of the city’s resistance fell in May 2022, the traumatised orphans were sent first to
Donetsk and then on to Moscow.
There, they were adopted or fostered by government workers, forced to become Russian citizens and threatened with conscription. Mr Yermokhin was just 16. He had lost both his parents just before the war.
“The first months were a blur,” Mr Yermokhin, now 18, told The Telegraph. “I understood only that I would need to get out.”
After escaping Russia last year, Mr Yermokhin is recovering in Kyiv. The psychological toll of surviving deportation, an act described as a war crime by the UN, will stay with him forever. Mariupol – a strategic port city on Ukraine’s southern coast – soon became the site of the war’s biggest battle to date, as Russia executed a brutal siege. At least 8,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch report last month – some estimates put the figure at 100,000.
“By the time Russian forces took over, I had the feeling that I was already dead,” he said. “I have learned that you have to cherish the moments and people you have because they won’t be there forever.”
Almost all of Mariupol’s buildings were damaged or destroyed during Russia’s three-month siege, and the city remains under occupation.
After Russia gained full control of the city they swept through to “clear the land”, as Mr Yermokhin put it, checking for remaining Ukrainian fighters. They made a list of the orphans left behind, before taking them from their shelters and sending them to Donetsk, one of two selfproclaimed Russia-aligned republics.
There, they stayed in a local hospital for a month. Mr Yermokhin believes it was to add an air of legitimacy to the transfer, so that Russia could claim it was administering medical care. However, he was neither sick nor hurt and received no treatment, he said.
He did not want to comment on the details of his time spent in Donetsk or Russia due to an ongoing investigation. However, he did say the children were not told why they were being moved or what would happen next.
Local media previously reported that he was transferred to Russia via bus and plane. Put up first in a summer camp, most of the children were then adopted or fostered by state workers – Mr Yermokhin was taken in by Irina Rudnitska, an assistant to the country’s former human rights ombudsman, Tatyana Moskalkova.
His foster family treated him well, although they were heavily influenced by the Russian narrative. Children were put into the local education system and issued citizenship.
Mr Yermokhin said the Russians tried to gain his trust, treating him nicely at first, but things deteriorated over time when he retained his positivity towards Ukraine – he would regularly argue with those around him, it was a constant psychological strain. The Mariupol 31 were turned into a propaganda tool for Moscow to “prove” they had saved the city.
Mr Yermokhin says the children are either too scared to rebel or coerced into complying with propaganda and bribes. Mr Yermokhin was offered a Moscow apartment in exchange for his cooperation. But he wasn’t swayed: “I prefer to live in a free democratic country than live as a slave”.
Towards the end of last year, fears began to grow for Mr Yermokhin’s safety as he approached adulthood – set to turn 18 in November, he received a letter, seen by The Telegraph, ordering him to attend an enlistment office within one month. Russian officials have claimed the summons was for record-keeping purposes.
His plight became public knowledge when lawyer Kateryna Bobrovskaya appealed to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President, for help. Just over a week later, on his 18th birthday, he returned to Ukraine, the result of an agreement reportedly mediated by Qatar and Unicef.
“I wrapped myself in a Ukrainian flag and jumped for joy for 10 minutes,” Mr Yermokhin said. He had tried to return home on his own earlier in the year, according to both Ukrainian and Russian media, with Mrs Lvova-belova saying in April that Mr Yermokhin had been stopped near the border with Belarus. He and Ms Bobrovskaya did not want to discuss details to protect efforts to rescue other children.
The Mariupol 31 are just a handful of the almost 20,000 cases of child deportations documented by Ukrainian authorities. It is believed the real figure could be far higher and Ukrainian authorities have called it an act of genocide. Moscow claims it has “welcomed” 744,000 Ukrainian children for their own safety.
Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy prime minister and minister for reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, told The Telegraph last month that Russia is “changing the identity of these children and we have little power to stop them”.
Mr Yermokhin is now focused on using his experience to help others. He and Ms Bobrovskaya have set up a foundation, Rescued Future of Ukraine, to help other children who were deported to Russia with housing, medical, financial, psychological and other support when they return home. He also now has a large Ukrainian coat of arms tattooed on his forearm
“No one hates Russia more than the orphans,” he said. “I want to show those who are still there that we will find a way to bring them back.”