24 children illegally held by the Russians were returned home, Kherson OVA reports . The children managed to be taken out of the occupied territory thanks to the efforts of the volunteers of the Save Ukraine charity foundation.
They were met by the head of the OVA, Alexander Prokudin, who spoke to them and presented them with gifts.
According to the volunteers, representatives of the Russian side interrogated the children's parents for 13 hours, after which they forced them to participate in a propaganda report.
Earlier, on April 8, 31 children were returned to Ukraine from the territory of the annexed Crimea. Initially, it was supposed to take out 33 children, but, as The Insider correspondent Marfa Smirnova reported from Kiev, the grandmother of two of them, who was supposed to come for her grandchildren, died.
These children were also from Kherson and were kept in various children's camps, where they were forced to take part in "patriotic" activities: to do exercises to the anthem of the Russian Federation and to sing the song "Forward, Russia." Before leaving, they had an explanatory conversation and warned them not to say anything bad about their stay in Crimea, since "no one knows how long Kherson will be Ukrainian."
On March 23, 17 children were returned to Ukraine, whom the occupying authorities of the Kherson region in October last year sent to children's camps on the territory of the annexed Crimea. One of the boys, 16-year-old Vitaly, told The Insider that they were beaten and kept in the basement, and one girl from Kherson was hit hard with an iron stick. The Insider figured out the identity of the person who did it. It turned out to be a former Berkut employee, who participated in the events on the Maidan on the part of the security forces of Viktor Yanukovych, Valery Astakhov.