Both Kira and Ilya were wounded, so even then the orphans were taken to the hospital in occupied Donetsk and there was a big risk that they would be sent further to Russia for adoption, according to TSN .

On the aching shots, the return of the children home to their relatives – Ilya does not go, because he has a massive leg injury, and Kira all the time holds his grandfather by the hand, who himself could not believe that he managed to free his granddaughter.

Kira with her father and his girlfriend tried to survive in Mariupol after a full-scale invasion. Her father, Ukrainian champion in water polo Yevgeny Obedensky, was killed by the occupiers. It happened in front of a 12-year-old girl. “There was a strong hysteria, they couldn’t calm her down, Kira was told that dad would be buried, but it’s impossible there, there was a collapse,” the relatives of the girls tell about the tragic events.

After that, Kira, along with other children and adults, got out of the destroyed city on foot and exploded on a stretch, the girl was chopped into pieces. She no longer remembers how, but they were picked up by a ride and taken to the occupied Mangush. The local hospital could not pull out the fragments, so the child was sent to Donetsk.

Ilya has a similar story, but he does not want to talk about it, his grandmother retold for him. Ilya and his mother Natalya were running away from the bombings in Mariupol and came under fire. But my mother was wounded in the head, and Ilya’s leg was torn off. Mom managed to drag her 10-year-old son to a friend’s house. They lay wounded, hugging on the sofa, until the neighbor realized that Natalya’s heart was no longer beating. “We were lying together with my mother, Aunt Valya came, touched me, there was no more pulse, she took me away. And the next day the military came,” says the boy.

The Russian military transported Ilya to the occupied Novoazovsk, and from there to Donetsk. At first, the doctors talked about amputation of the leg. “They wanted to cut off his leg first, but he heard it, he was conscious, and then they looked, his leg was functioning,” says the grandmother.

“When this happened, I endured, when I had an operation, they didn’t give me anesthesia, I endured,” says Ilya.

Since the grandmother found out that Ilya was in the hospital in Donetsk, she began to fight for him, and grandfather fought for Kira. For a month, these two families woke up and fell asleep with the thought of how to return the children back. This story was taken up by the Office of the President – the Ministry for the Reintegration of the Occupied Territories. Negotiations continued at the highest level with Moscow, and the mediators were from other countries. But the risks that Kira and Ilya would be sent deep into Russia and given up for adoption as orphans were very high. “There, the question was for days, last Friday they already wanted to take the children to an unknown destination, and it was emotionally exciting, I demanded that the children stay in Donetsk,” says Irina Vereshchuk.

She says that several factors worked in this situation – the Ukrainian side knew where the children were physically located, relatives quickly issued guardianship. During the state of war, the procedure was simplified and accelerated as much as possible, but the most important thing was that relatives were ready to go to the occupied territory and pick up the children personally. “All this time, when negotiations were going on at the highest level, the children did not know when their loved ones would get to them. In that hospital, both Kira and Ilya had a tantrum – they said that no one needed them, because no one was going to them, ”adds Vereshchuk.

But relatives did everything possible for their grandchildren. Ilya’s grandmother crossed the territory of 4 states to get to her grandson. “From Kyiv by train to Poland. From Poland by plane to Turkey, from Turkey to Sochi, from Sochi by plane to Moscow, they said to wait there, but you know, it’s all on the nerves, ”recalls the woman.

In the same way, children with their relatives returned to Ukraine. On the day of arrival, Ilya had a birthday – 10 years. And although he didn’t have a cake with candles, the president came to Ilya for his birthday with a gift .

And grandmother on this day was waiting for the main gift from the doctors – they examined Ilya’s leg and, despite the huge damage to the back of the thigh, he can move his toes, which means that the function is preserved and Ilya will be able to walk after a long treatment. “The wounds there are also not bad, so happy birthday,” the doctors say

Ilya is a real fighter and very sociable when there are a lot of people around. But when he is left alone, his mood worsens. Grandmother says that now her task is to warm Elijah with hugs. “You know, when the heart is broken, and then it united once, because it is dear, you understand,” says the grandmother.

Kira, when she returned to Ukraine, kept asking her grandfather if explosions were heard in Kyiv, and that they weren’t shooting there. Alexander Petrovich constantly assures the girl that she is safe. And she also understands that it’s too early to talk about her dad with her. His son’s body still remains under the rubble of their house in Mariupol. “Yesterday I started talking about dad on the train, she started crying, I realized that I shouldn’t talk,” the man says.

Kira cuddles up to grandfather all the time and does not let go even a step, hugs him all the time and wants to go home. Their home will be temporarily in Chernivtsi, because their hometown no longer exists.

During the full-scale war, 5,000 Ukrainian children were forcibly taken to Russia. But the hugs of these children with their relatives are evidence that even in a hopeless situation, one must fight for the return of little Ukrainians to the house. “We have to fight, we have to fight, there is nothing else left. Nothing is impossible,” the relatives of the children are convinced.

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