Russia’s invasion left thousands of Ukrainian children stranded in Russia. For one 12-year-old girl, the only way out of her occupied village led away from her mother.

Russia’s invasion left thousands of Ukrainian children stranded in Russia. For one 12-year-old girl, the only way out of her occupied village led away from her mother.

In October, Meduza’s publishing house released ”Stolen Youth: How Russia Kidnaps Ukrainian Children — And How Ukrainians Get Them Back.” Written by Russian journalist Nina Nazarova and Ukrainian journalist Sviatoslav Khomenko, the book was published with support from the StraightForward Foundation. From the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the authors tracked how thousands of children were taken deep into Russia from Ukrainian territories devastated by the Russian army. They reached some of the separated families, and the idea for this book grew out of those conversations. It details four ways children were illegally deported. One of the people featured in “Stolen Youth” is Veronika, a girl from the Kharkiv region who left occupied territory with a relative and was unable to return to her mother. We are translating the full chapter “Veronika Takes Shelter in a Cellar,” about how and where the war began for her.