The 'underground railroad': Saving Ukraine’s children from Russia

A humanitarian group is rescuing Ukraine's children from Russia in a special operation described by its CEO as the "underground railroad."

It's a complex, risky process for children escaping Russian indoctrination or the prospect of being forced to fight against their own people, according to the head of Save Ukraine, Mykola Kuleba.

Speaking to ABC News Live Prime, Kuleba said part of the job is to make sure Ukrainian children are aware that there are contact points for them to reach out and get help to escape from Russian captivity.

Many of the children in the occupied territories of Ukraine now controlled by Russian forces have been facing almost four years of indoctrination, so Kuleba said it can also be challenging to convince them that they can have a good life in Ukraine or abroad.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, thousands of children have been forcibly taken to Russian "reeducation" camps, some of them have even been adopted by Russian families. Ukraine estimates that around 20,000 children have been deported to Russia or forcibly transferred within occupied territories since the full-scale invasion began.

Save Ukraine has been working to bring these children home with the support of the Jewish Federations of North America, a nongovernmental organization.

As the war grinds on and Russia’s occupation of the territories in eastern Ukraine continues, prominent international humanitarian lawyer Wayne Jordash said the focus of Russian troops has shifted from abduction of Ukrainian children to assimilation into Russian society and culture.

"The focus now is cultural assimilation -- extinguishing Ukrainian identity," Jordash told ABC News in his office in Kyiv. "Ensuring the children grow up believing they are Russian, and that Ukraine is, at best, an enemy.

According to Jordash, the "real win" for the Russian education system would be to have children forget their Ukrainian culture.

"If they won't forget, then hating is the second best thing," he said.

That pressure is something staff at the nonprofit Voices of Children say they hear echoed by the children who make it back to Ukraine.

"They keep getting fed things like Ukraine doesn't want you, they're not coming for you, your parents don't want you, your families don't want you, why do you want to go back somewhere that's not fighting for you?" said Sarah Slimp, who works with returned children in Kyiv.

Russia has been expanding its network of re-education and military camps, according to a report from Yale University’s School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab released in September 2025.

The report analyzed satellite imagery and other open source data to reveal a network of these camps in 210 locations stretching more than 3,500 miles across Russia and Ukraine’s occupied regions.

At one of Save Ukraine’s dormitories, 17-year-old Oleksiy is among the children adjusting back into life in Ukraine after recently attending a military camp in Russian-occupied territory.

He told ABC News it was mandatory for all of his classmates to go, otherwise they wouldn’t graduate from school. Oleksiy described having to dig trenches deep enough so that none of his body parts stick out, as well as training in a range of weapons and war tactics while in the camps.

"I know people who were drafted into conscription service," Oleksiy said, "After turning 18, when you register for military service, they call you in."

On several official Russian telegram channels, ABC News found evidence of Ukrainian children taking part in military exercises, along with evidence of attempts to force Ukrainians to assimilate into Russian society and culture.

A teacher from a school in Melitopol, a Ukrainian city that has been occupied by Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion, told ABC News that Ukrainian students are taught four lessons in patriotic education each week.

That teacher, who said her name is Vladyslava, then passed the phone to 10-year-old Valeria. Asked whether she felt Ukrainian or Russian, Valeria said she didn't understand the question. When asked again, a few seconds of silence followed. Then Vladyslava got back on the phone

"Valeria has left," the teacher said.

It’s children like Valeria that Save Ukraine desperately wants to bring back before they disappear into the Russian system, Kuleba noted.

"That's why we are really afraid that we will lose these kids forever or for decades," he said.