- After the Russian attack on Mariupol, the family hid in a shelter. Finally, Russian soldiers entered the hospital and offered Yevan and his relatives “two options.”
- The man was imprisoned as a prisoner of war and lost contact with his children. After leaving, he began to look for them, but found that they had been taken to Moscow
- After many difficulties, the Ukrainian reached the capital of Russia. “I was shocked to see that the camp had a big gate and armed guards,” he said
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Meshevy is one of thousands of Ukrainian parents whose children have been abducted and sent to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine began last February. The forced deportations prompted the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek the release on Friday Arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When war broke out, Meshewicz was working as a crane operator in Mariupol. As she told the Guardian, when she heard the first Russian shelling, she immediately thought about the safety of her children – 13-year-old Matvey, 9-year-old Svyatoslava and 7-year-old Oleksandra. Mariupol soon came under siege, which the International Committee of the Red Cross described as “apocalyptic”.
After the war began, the family stayed in a shelter in one of Mariupol’s hospitals, where the man helped move the bodies of the dead. On March 17, Russian soldiers entered the hospital and offered the family “two options.”
“Either we can go with them immediately, or we can talk to the Chechens who come after them.” We decided to go with them (Russians – ed.). They took us to Vynohradny, a village east of Mariupol, where young men with white t-shirts and “I love Russia” badges welcomed us and helped us. We stayed there for a while, but one day, after we were taken to a checkpoint and searched, a Russian officer found something in my documents,” Meshevi said.
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Between 2016 and 2019, the man served in the Ukrainian army in the west of the country. Therefore, the Russians transferred him to a prison near Olenivka in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were kept. He stayed there for 45 days. After coming out of jail, he started searching for his family.
He went to Donetsk, where he collected his documents and searched for information about the fate of his children. A member of the occupation administration informed him that he had been taken to a “camp” in Moscow. Destitute, Mezewyj tried to find work to bring her children. In early June, his son Matvij called him and told his father that the camp they were staying in would be closed within five days and that all the minors gathered there would have to go to foster families or an orphanage.
Mezhevyj eventually reached Moscow with the help of volunteers. – It was very difficult to get to Russia from the occupied territories. Although I had already spent 45 days in jail, I was interrogated and interrogated again and again, and all I wanted was to get my children back. But no one cares. Finally, I crossed the border into Russia and boarded a train to Moscow,” Meshevi said.
Upon arrival in the Russian capital, he was contacted by Alexei Kazarian, a Russian official working in the Office of the Ombudsman for Children headed by Maria Lavova-Belova. He is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant. Gazarian said Mezhevyi needed permission to take her children from the social services of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). We managed to get such consent, and on June 20, the Ukrainian arrived at the camp on the outskirts of Moscow.
“I was shocked when I saw that the camp had a big gate and armed guards,” Mezewyj said.
The father was then interrogated by at least five people and had to fill out several pages of documents. “When I was filling out the last document, I heard the voices of my women and I stopped. They ran up and we hugged for a long time. Then my son Matvij came,” the Ukrainian recounted.
Meżewyj was able to travel with the children to Latvia with the help of volunteers, where he and his family found shelter.