CHILD SNATCHERS
I was kidnapped from Ukraine and sent to hellhole ‘filtration’ Russian camp – Putin’s thugs treated us like animals
A BOY who was kidnapped and sent to a hellhole Russian "filtration" camp has told how they were treated like animals.
Sashko Radchok was 11 when Russian troops began shelling his home city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine.
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After suffering an eye injury from shelling, Sashko and his mother were taken to a Ukrainian military hospital, but it was quickly taken over by Putin's forces.
Sashko said he and his mother were taken by Russian troops and moved elsewhere: "The Russian military put us in Kamaz trucks like animals and took us to some hangar."
After being searched roughly in a "filtration" camp to see if he and his mum were "disloyal" to Russia, he and his mum were separated.
While his mum was being questioned, two members of Russia's "child services" approached young Sashko and told him he would be leaving with them.
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The young lad recalled: "They didn't even let me say goodbye.
"I was terrified. Nothing felt real. The Russians said my mum didn't need me and that I would be given to a foster family in Russia."
Sashko was taken to a hospital in Russian-occupied Donetsk, where he couldn't reach his mum.
Weeks later grandmum Liudmyla Siryk - who had been unable to reach her daughter or grandson for weeks - saw a photo of Sashko on Facebook.
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Sashko managed to find a phone after a month of being held in the hospital and called his grandmother.
Brave Liudmyla left her home and travelled through Ukraine, then Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Russia to reach Sashko.
Liudmyla said: "How could I not have gone if my blood was there? He's waiting for me. I have to go."
Months after his ordeal began, Sashko returned home to Ukraine with his grandmother.
She said: "He is with me now, studying here and waiting for his mum."
Sashko's mum has not been heard from since they were separated at the "filtration" area.
The 12-year-old's story is just one of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped and brought to Russia or Russian-controlled territories since the war began.
The Yale Conflict Observatory has revealed Russia has set up special facilities masquerading as summer camps where kidnapped children are "re-trained" to become pro-Russian.
More than 19,000 children have been deported to Russia, but only 373 have been returned, according to Ukrainian officials.
One Ukrainian teenager who was kidnapped from school and shipped off to a hellhole Russian camp has told of the horrors he faced.
Vitaliy spent six months in a camp in Crimea before being rescued in March this year.
He was told he was going on a two-week holiday camp with pupils from his school and they were herded onto a boat and then a bus for a 12-hour journey.
The terrified children who resist Russian forces are locked up and often drugged - while others are sent to fight against their home country as soldiers.
Vitaliy told : "That's what I thought was going to happen to me. They told me my mum had abandoned me."
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The truth was, Vitaliy's mum Inessa was working hard to bring back her eldest son - enlisting the help of an organisation who took six days to reach where Vitaliy was.
Several organisations are working to help bring Ukrainian children home from their captors - one of which is , which "fight for justice, safeguard rights, and restore truth in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine".
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