Reported by
Ukrainian prosecutors have identified three suspects in the abduction of 15 children from a school in a Russian-occupied region, part of Moscow’s broader campaign that has seen tens of thousands of Ukrainian minors taken to be raised as militant Russians and indoctrinated to support Russian imperialism.
The case has been prepared for both national and international courts, according to OCCRP partner Slidstvo.Info.
The children, aged 10 to 17, were living at the Novopetrivka Special School in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region when Russian troops entered the village on March 24, 2022.
Investigators found that soldiers visited the school repeatedly in the early weeks of the occupation to count the children. In July 2022, the school’s director tried to arrange the children’s transfer to Ukrainian-controlled territory, but armed troops discovered the plan, interrogated her, and placed the building under guard.
The next day, around 20 armed soldiers took the children, the director, and her husband to Stepanyvka in the occupied Kherson region, where they were held for three months. In October, two local collaborators allegedly coordinated the next move: transport to Kherson’s river port, a boat to Oleshky, a bus through Armyansk in occupied Crimea, and on to Dzhankoy railway station. From there, the children were placed in a separate train car and sent to Anapa, in Russia’s Krasnodar region.
CCTV footage from Stepanyvka shows armed men removing the children. One man, unmasked, was identified by Slidstvo.Info as Georgiy Tambovtsev, the Russian-installed deputy minister of youth and sports in occupied Kherson. Prosecutors also named Yevheniya Chernyshova, rector of the occupied Kherson State Agrarian and Economic University, and Aleksandr Kibkalo, director of the “Zhemchuzhina Rossii” health camp in Anapa, as suspects.
Investigators say the children were banned from speaking Ukrainian or displaying national symbols, forced to sing the Russian anthem, and made to participate in pro-Russian events. Prosecutors stress there was no medical or safety reason for their removal — the school had shelter, food, medicine, and stable conditions.
The case falls under Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, which addresses violations of the laws and customs of war. Prosecutors have added the suspects to sanctions lists, filed the indictment in a Ukrainian court, and plan to send evidence to international bodies.
One of the children, 16-year-old Yulia, was reunited with her adoptive mother, U.S. citizen Bethany White, after volunteers helped evacuate the group from Anapa to Georgia. All 15 children have since been relocated to safe locations abroad.
Ukraine’s Children’s Ombudsman Mykola Kuleba says more than 19,000 Ukrainian children remain in Russian-controlled territory. He noted that occupation authorities have even created an online database with children’s photographs, allowing searches by eye and hair color.
