Former Commissioner for Children in Ukraine, head of Save Ukraine Mykola Kuleba, spoke on The Insider Live about the details of the death of a woman who came to pick up Ukrainian children from Russia-annexed Crimea in early April:
“This woman, the grandmother of one of the children (she took the second child according to all documents), was brought to death. In fact, she was killed because the stress she received after 14 hours of interrogation at the FSB was incompatible with life. So her heart just stopped.
By the way, other women saw the certificate issued by the local authorities, and it said “suicide”. But we have all the facts that confirm what happened then. She died in front of many people. Her heart stopped, they tried to resuscitate her – nothing happened. And they tried to hide this crime.
We managed to return one of the children, but not the granddaughter of this grandmother. Before that, her grandmother contacted her, and the girl asked to be taken home – she has an aunt, she has a brother, they are waiting for her. But the very next day she said: “They take me to the store, they will buy me things.” Then, a day later, the girl said: “I probably will not return to Ukraine. I was promised that I would be adopted here. My grandmother died, and there is a war in Ukraine.”
This is a 13-year-old child, who began to answer, under the tracing paper, with memorized phrases that are told to all these children and they are obliged to repeat them. After the legal representative arrived with all the documents to pick up this child, the local authorities hid her and said: “We will not show it to you. The child does not want to return to Ukraine.” They didn't even let me talk to her. Imagine this brutality. I don't know what it's called, if not fascism."
On April 4, 31 children from Russian-occupied Crimea were returned to Ukraine. It was assumed that 33 children would return to their homeland, but the woman who was supposed to pick them up and whom Kuleba is talking about, died. Children told that they were forced to do exercises to the Russian national anthem and sing the song “Forward, Russia”. Before they were allowed to go home, they had a conversation, in which they were ordered not to tell anything bad about their stay in Crimea.