Voice of Ukraine

From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 516):

Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
I cried to him with my mouth,
and high praise was on my tongue.
Psalm 66:16‭-‬17

Today, I came across an article in “The Kyiv Independent” (https://cutt.ly/jwafs7FN), and it was a very somber read based on their documentary “Uprooted: An investigation into Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children” (https://youtu.be/cq2gEMhuDps).

Deporting children from the occupied territories against their will constitutes genocide according to one of the five definitions of the United Nations Genocide Convention. However, when you look deeper into the specific stories, you see how horrible and inhumane it really is.

The abducted children are held incommunicado, brainwashed with pro-Russian propaganda, and adopted by Russian families despite having living relatives in Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities have identified almost 20,000 children who have been abducted by Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, but the actual number is much higher (close to 100,000, according to some estimations). In the documentary, they call them the “stolen generation,” and my heart breaks as I try to grasp the scale of this tragedy.

Ukraine has rescued 385 children (as of July 24), but thousands remain in captivity, separated from their families, or even adopted into Russian families and being trained to fight alongside the Russian army.

I lack words. Lord, have mercy and restore justice!