- December 26, 2024
- 12:40 am
- World News
“Thank God he died. Less problems”– eyewitnesses quote words from Russian adoptive parents of Ukrainian teenager Alexander Yakushchenko.
The guy was taken to the Russian Federation from the occupied territory of the Kherson region, given to a foster family and forbidden to return to Ukraine.
For almost a year, no information about the reasons for the guy’s death was known, until the media published the death certificate, the story told the BBC.
18-year-old Alexander Yakushchenko, an orphan from the Kherson region, was taken to Russia during the occupation in the fall of 2022. Together with his younger sister Kristina, he ended up in the Krasnodar region, where they were placed in different foster families. Alexander was taken into the care of Natalya and Alexander Lukashenko from the village of Akhtanizovskaya.
The boy remained in a foster family even after reaching adulthood. However, according to his friends and acquaintances, Alexander was depressed for a long time, dreamed of returning to Ukraine and was faced with indifference from his new family.
Tragedy in Akhtanizovskaya
The publication “Important Stories” together with The Reckoning Project told the story of a Ukrainian young man. According to them, Yakushchenko’s death was recorded on January 10, 2024 in the village of Akhtanizovsk in the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. The relevant data is contained in the death certificate published by the media.
For almost a year, no information was known about the reasons for the guy’s death.
As it turned out, in the fall of 2022, the head of the orphanage in the village of Tokarevka (Kherson region), Lydia Sharvarly, took all the adopted children to Russia. Among them were at that time 17-year-old Alexander Yakushchenko and his sister, 13-year-old Christina.
In Russia, the children were distributed to different foster families. Alexander ended up in the family of Natalia and Alexander Lukashenko in the village of Akhtanizovsk in the Krasnodar Territory.
Yakushchenko lived in their orphanage even after he turned 18 in 2023. Alexander Lukashenko explains this by saying that “the guy simply had nowhere to go.” He also said that Russian guardianship authorities asked him to take the teenager from Kherson.
According to friends, a few days before the tragedy, the teenager sent a voice message to friends, where he admitted that he felt unnecessary in his foster family. Moreover, his phone was broken and his data was erased.
“I don’t believe he could commit suicide. We talked and he seemed happy. What could have changed in a week?” – says his biological mother Elena Yakushchenko, who is now fighting for the return of her daughter Kristina from Russia.
Russian guardianship authorities took away Alexander's documents so that he could not return home.
“The guardianship said that he wanted to return to Ukraine, his passport was taken away, and he left and hanged himself because of this,” Karina Petrenko, who was raised together with Yakushchenko in a Kherson orphanage, told Important Stories.
Shortly before his death, he sent a voice message to friends on social networks, where he said that his adoptive family “made it clear to him that they did not need him at all.”
“The foster family came (to the funeral) and chose the cheapest coffin. When the flowers were laid, they simply came up and threw them, like to a dog. And when it’s time to go, the adoptive family says: “Thank God, he died. Less problems”,” Olga, a friend of the deceased, told the media (name changed for security reasons).
Ukrainian children in Russia: the scale of the problem
Since 2022, Alexander Yakushchenko has been on the wanted list of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as a missing person. He, as well as his sister Kristina, are also on the list of almost 20 thousand Ukrainian children whom Russia illegally removed from the occupied territories.
To date, only 388 children have been returned.
Human rights activists on the problem of deportation
Katerina Rashevskaya, a lawyer at the Russian Center for Human Rights, emphasizes that the deportation of Ukrainian children has become systemic. Russia not only changes the citizenship of children, but also blocks any information about their whereabouts.
“When they turn 18, they just want to be taken home. The despair that no one will come is killing them.”said the human rights activist.
According to her, his documents were indeed confiscated and he was not allowed to return to Ukraine.
Rashevskaya also emphasized that this is not the only case when Russian adoptive parents take away documents from Ukrainian children and do not allow them to return to their homeland. In addition, there are cases where children have special software installed on their phones to track their movements. Rashevskaya says there have been cases where children tried to cross the border on their own, but were detained and returned to Russian foster families.
Ekaterina Rashevskaya says that Russia is blocking information about Ukrainian and international initiatives to return deported children. The lack of information drives them to despair.
Ukraine's reaction
The Ukrainian prosecutor's office opened a criminal case into the death of Alexander Yakushchenko. The case is classified as a war crime in accordance with Part 2 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
In addition, since March 2023, the ISS has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Putin and Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for organizing the deportation of Ukrainian children.
“The story of Alexander Yakushchenko is a tragedy that has become a symbol of crimes against Ukrainian children. We have a responsibility to do everything we can to bring all our children home..”
Read more about the deportation and return of Ukrainian children on our website NAnews – Israel News.
“NAnews» reminds: Alexander's fate is only one of thousands of cases. This story highlights the importance of the fight for the rights of Ukrainian children and the need for international assistance.
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