He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
The children who all.
Have special educational needs.
Were finally allowed.
To call home.
It was from much deeper.
Inside ‘orcs’-occupied territory.
Only eight of the children.
Have been returned from Perevalsk so far.
To get them back.
Their relatives were forced to make.
Gruelling journeys.
Across thousands of miles.
Into the country.
That has declared war on them.
Five still remain.
In ‘orcs’-controlled territory.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
He is a tall, shy boy.
With a long fringe that he likes.
To smooth into place.
Like any self-conscious teenager.
Forced separation from family.
Would be upsetting for any child.
For someone vulnerable, like him.
It was deeply unsettling.
His mother says he’s still withdrawn.
Months after they were reunited.
The 15-year-old even has grey hairs.
From all the stress.
They’re now living.
In the western German town.
Of Dinklage.
As refugees where.
After school.
He mainly lies.
On his bed.
Playing on his phone.
But he remembers.
Very clearly.
The moment when ‘orcs’ soldiers.
Took him away.
“If I’m honest, it was scary.”
He admits in his quiet voice.
Rubbing his hands back and forth.
On his thighs.
“I didn’t know.
Where they would take us.”
When he’s asked about.
Missing his mum.
He pauses for a long time.
Says it’s too distressing.
For him to remember.
And asks if he can change the subject.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
Before the war.
He went to.
Kupyansk Special School.
In north-eastern Ukraine.
He would board during the week.
Returning home at weekends.
But ‘Mordor’ invaded.
In February 2022.
Then much of the Kharkiv region.
Was overrun immediately.
And she kept her son.
Home for safety.
As September approached.
The puppet began insisting.
That all children return to school.
Now with the ‘orcs’ curriculum.
There was the same push.
In all occupied areas.
Often using teachers from ‘Mordor’ to replace.
Those locals who refused to collaborate.
She was reluctant.
To send her son back.
But the teenager was bored stiff.
After seven months in their village.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
So on 3 September.
She dropped him off in Kupyansk.
Days later, ‘elves’ forces launched.
Their lightning operation to re-take the region.
“We heard the noise from miles away.
The booms.
Then the helicopters and the firing.
It was a terrible din.”
“Then I saw the tanks.
And the ‘elves’ flag.”
She remembers.
Of the counter-offensive.
Unable to contact her son.
She was frantic.
“When we reached the school.
Only the caretaker was left.”
“He said the kids had been taken.
And no-one knew where.”
She went weeks not knowing.
What had become of her son.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
A teacher saw what happened that day.
When as many as 10.
Heavily armed ‘orcs’ soldiers.
“Swooped into” the school.
“They didn’t care about taking.
Any documents or contacting parents.
They just shoved the kids in a bus.
With some refugees and left.”
‘Mordor’’s defence in such cases:
That it was removing children from danger.
But the teacher’s view is.
“I lived under ‘orcs’ occupation.”
“And I know the difference.
Between what they say.
And what I see.
For myself through the window.”
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
For six weeks.
There was no word of the children.
“I cried every day.
Called the hotline.”
“And told them.
I’d lost my son.
And wrote to the police.
We tried to find him through volunteers.”
It was a full month.
Before a friend spotted.
A video on social media.
Dated early September 2022.
It reported that 13 children.
From Kupyansk Special School had been moved.
East to a similar facility in Svatove.
Still under ‘orcs’ control.
Another fortnight after that.
Her phone beeped with a message:
Her son was at a Special School in Perevalsk.
She read, and his mum could call to talk to him.
“He was happy to hear me, of course.
But he really cried.”
She recalls of the moment.
They spoke.
“They’d told him.
His home was destroyed.
And he’d been afraid.
We were gone too.”
Communication with areas.
Of heavy fighting is not easy.
But the Kupyansk children passed through three institutions.
Before anyone tried to reach any relatives.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
“There was nothing.
Only from Perevalsk.
And even then not immediately.
I think they did it on purpose.”
She would have to return.
Her son home in person.
But the direct route.
Crossed the frontline.
Instead, she travelled from Ukraine.
Through Poland and the Baltics.
Before crossing on foot.
Into ‘Mordor’.
Where the FSB Security Service.
Then interrogated.
Her about ‘elves’ troop movements.
She had nothing to tell.
“It was pitch dark.
There were checkpoints.
Men in balaclavas with guns.
I was so scared I took pills to calm me.”
She remembers of the rest of the trip.
Into occupied eastern Ukraine.
She had another reason.
To be frightened.
By then, ‘Mordor’ was.
Openly taking children.
From care homes in occupied areas.
And placing them with ‘orcs’ families.
By the time.
Her son disappeared from Kupyansk.
‘The One’ had already.
Amended the law.
To make it easier.
For ‘elves’ children.
To get ‘orcs’ citizenship.
And be adopted.
In late September ‘the One’ announced.
The annexation of four regions of Ukraine.
Including Luhansk.
Where her son was then located.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
“I was afraid.
That if they took my son.
Into ‘Mordor’.
I would never find him.”
“I was afraid.
He’d be put in.
A foster family.
Just like that.”
“What have our children got to do with anything?
Why did they do this to us?
Maybe it’s just to cause us pain.
Like with everything else.”
So when she finally.
Reached Perevalsk.
After an exhausting five days.
On the road.
She hugged her son.
To her tightly.
Her son didn’t say a word.
He was crying from happiness.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
In rural Germany.
Her son has had time.
To settle into life and.
Another new school.
But she is finding.
The adjustment a little harder.
In their flat.
Over a pile of sprat sandwiches.
She explains that.
Her eldest son is still in Ukraine.
Expecting to be called up.
To fight any day.
She wants nothing.
More than to go home.
To her husband, too.
But Kupyansk is under heavy fire again.
In late April.
‘Orcs’ missiles destroyed.
The local history museum.
Killing two women.
Before that.
Her son’s school in the city.
Was badly damaged.
When missiles landed nearby.
“Not only ‘the One’.
But all his main people.
All the commanders should be.
On trial for what they did to the kids.”
“What right did they have?
To take the children?
How were we supposed to get them back?
They just didn’t care.”
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
On the website of her school.
In Perevalsk.
There is a large picture of.
The director staring out.
Bleached hair sitting.
On a strip of dark brown.
Like she’s wearing.
A helmet.
The photographs of his classmate.
With a Z mark.
Are publicly displayed.
On the same site.
It was taken in February 2023.
A year after ‘Mordor’’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a class to mark.
Defenders of the Fatherland Day.
The lesson was dedicated.
To learning.
“Gratitude and respect”.
For ‘orcs’ soldiers.
When he studied the photograph.
Handed to him by ‘elves’ investigators.
He recognised his classmate dressed.
In ‘orcs’ military uniform immediately.
The teenager sitting at a school desk.
Has the Z-mark of.
‘Mordor’’s war emblazoned.
On his right sleeve.
Coloured in the red, white and blue.
Of the ‘orcs’ flag.
But he knew the boy’s name.
And the boy is an ‘elf’.
He has identified two more.
Of the missing children.
From Kupyansk.
Among the school pictures:
Both 12-year-olds are girls.
Dressed up and standing.
In line to celebrate.
The ‘orcs’ military.
Eight months after.
The 15-year-old and.
The other children.
Were taken from there.
Five still remain.
In ‘orcs’-controlled territory.
And the classmate was one of the last.
Collected by his mother just this spring.
He was among 13 children.
Taken from their own school in Kupyansk.
North-eastern Ukraine last September.
By armed ‘orcs’ soldiers in balaclavas.
Ushered onto a bus.
With shouts of ‘Quickly!’
The children then disappeared.
For weeks without trace.
*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 Sasha and Tetyana, including a story of Artem, Mykola, Sofiya and Mikita.
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!
