Story 1: Ilia

Ilia, 19, with his mother and brother was forcibly taken to the RF by bus from Mariupol. By then the city was ruined and fully occupied by the Russian forces. Ilia and his family had no way to escape.

First, they all were gathered in a filtration camp. Ilia said: “This was horror. Russian soldiers bullied people there, shouted at them, and threatened them. The Russians didn’t care that they took thousands of lives and broke them. I felt the most severe stress there. It was even more stressful compared to when I had to run under the gun shots.”

The family went through a filtration camp and was deported to Russia. There they stayed for 5 days and managed to escape to Europe. Ilia’s younger brother, at the age of 10, experienced indescribable emotions that not every adult can live through. For him, the war experience was the hardest in the family, and now he has to undergo psychotherapy.

This is just one of many stories of deported Ukrainians. Ilia and his family were lucky to escape from Russia in just 5 days, but this is an exception. There are millions of deported Ukrainians whose stories are not discovered yet.