“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We’d been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
For six months.
She felt like.
Part of herself.
Was missing.
When she packed her 13-year-old son off.
To camp in Crimea.
She thought her son was heading.
For two weeks by the sea.
It was meant to be a break.
From the stress of war:
Other kids from Kherson had been.
To camp and come back.
So she wasn’t worried.
Besides, their city.
Had been occupied.
Since the very start of the invasion.
And by October 2022.
She’d begun to think.
‘Mordor’ would control Kherson for good.
Though she didn’t want that.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We’d been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
But days after she waved her son off.
The officials responsible for him.
Announced that.
The children would not return.
The ‘orcs’ had begun.
Retreating from Kherson.
If the children’s parents wanted them back.
They were told they should come for them.
She pleaded with the puppet.
But was told they would.
Only return the children.
“When Kherson is ‘Mordor’’s again.”
She called the Prosecutor’s Office.
In Crimea.
But they insisted she had to.
Get her son herself.
And so for weeks.
She reassured her son that.
She was coming for him.
Even as she tried to work out how.
The distance from Kherson.
To Yevpatoria is short.
But the direct route was closed.
By the ‘orcs’ military.
And a far longer route.
Through Zaporizhzhia was too dangerous.
“There was a less than 5% chance.
Of getting there and back safely,” she was told.
She would also need.
Around $1,500.
For a driver.
As well as her first ever passport.
And all the paperwork.
The ‘orcs’ were demanding.
To prove her link.
To her son.
She was already starting to despair.
When her son said officials at his camp.
Were threatening to place the children in care.
If their parents didn’t hurry.
“The kids have been calling us.
In panic.
Saying that they don’t want to.
End up in homes.”
She fretted.
“And ‘Mordor’ is huge!
Where would we?
Look for them then?”
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We’d been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
She finally set off.
In a train carriage.
Full of other mums and grandmothers.
On the most anxious journey of their lives.
The women were being helped.
By a group which stepped in.
When it emerged that hundreds of.
‘Elves’ children might be stranded.
But she couldn’t wait.
Any longer.
“I still have this gnawing worry.
Something will go wrong.”
“It will be there.
Until I have my son.
Next to me.
Then I can breathe again.”
Over a week later.
She was one of the last.
To cross the border.
Back from Belarus.
Dragging a big suitcase.
Into Ukraine.
Past concrete boulders.
And anti-tank defences.
Her son, with his dimpled grin.
Was finally safe beside her.
There had been moments.
When she thought she wouldn’t make it.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We’d been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
“They kept us like cattle.
Separate from anyone else.
Fourteen hours with no water.
No food, nothing.”
She described.
Being held by.
‘Mordor’’s FSB security service.
At a Moscow airport.
“They kept asking us.
What military equipment we had seen.
They checked our phones a million times.
And asked about all our relatives.”
The women continued.
The 24-hour drive south to Crimea.
Eventually.
She made it to the camp.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We’d been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
A few weeks after her return.
“Everything was finally over.
Once we made it here.”
She says cheerfully down the line.
She admits.
There was some bad feeling.
Towards the summer-camp mums.
At the start.
Seen as “collaborators”.
For sending their children.
To ‘orcs’-run facilities in the first place.
But she feels that has faded.
In her own family.
Her son is back.
To bickering with his younger brother.
And studying online, in ‘elves’ language.
But with no internet at home.
She has to dash into the city centre to hunt.
For wi-fi to download his schoolwork.
And that’s risky.
Since the ‘orcs’ were forced into retreat.
Abandoning Kherson.
They’ve been taking their revenge.
On the city from across the river.
“They’re shelling from morning to night.”
She confirms, though she says.
Their house is relatively far from ‘orcs’ positions.
They have no plans to leave.
Her son is still in a group chat.
With the other children from camp.
And most who remained.
Have now been collected.
But he says.
Five were transferred.
To a care home.
Somewhere in ‘Mordor’.
She shows a photograph.
Of their room.
With rows of single beds.
A cheap rug and a spider plant.
Where the left-behind children.
Go from there isn’t clear.
The group returned.
31 children that day.
“The moment I saw my child.
Running towards me in tears.
It made up for everything.
We’d been through.”
She described her reunion.
At last, with her son.
Her son says.
It was “just brilliant!”
*Because I read “Ukraine war: The mothers going to get their children back from Russia” by Sarah Rainsford on 1 June 2023, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem as a story of Danylo and Alla.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:
Ukraine war: The mothers going to get their children back from Russia – BBC News
**My friend shows you this poem with the other 2 poems together also on the Ukrainian website for their children and others!
Please join them!
