Ukrainian children captured and ‘brainwashed’ by Russia in preparation for war tell how they escaped

Ukrainian teenager Vladyslav Rudenko’s life was upended when Russian soldiers blasted into his home in Kherson in October 2022.

The menacing, black balaclava-clad troops said he had 30 minutes to pack whatever he could carry then ripped him from his family — he was 16 at the time.

It was nine months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Rudenko was forced onto one of several buses filled with Ukrainian children.

The military drove them to a camp in Crimea known as Druzhba — “Friendship” in both Ukrainian and Russian — populated by some 600 Ukrainian children and teenagers who were there to be re-educated.

The forced recruits were told to discard anything that would identify them as Ukrainian. One girl wore a T-shirt stamped with the words “Glory to Ukraine,” Rudenko told The Post.

She refused to take it off, so the Russian soldiers cut it off her, according to Rudenko.

At the re-education camp, teenagers were subjected to Russian propaganda videos and had to swear allegiance every morning to the Russian flag.

When Rudenko refused to cooperate, he was stuck in a dark cell and force-fed pills “to calm me down.”

Later, the soldiers sent Rudenko to a military camp where he learned to use weapons and drive a tank.

He was offered a Russian passport, education at a Russian university and Russian citizenship.

“They were trying to bribe me,” he said, adding that he is currently in therapy after suffering “emotional and psychological pressure to switch sides.”

Before he was scheduled to go to the front, Rudenko was allowed to call his mother, who had been working with the non-profit Save Ukraine to help him.

For security reasons, he says he cannot reveal how he was rescued, but is now back in Ukraine in what he described as “a very stable” environment.

The Russians offered him a Russian passport, education at a Russian university and Russian citizenship.

“They were trying to bribe me,” he said, adding that he is currently in therapy after suffering “emotional and psychological pressure to switch sides.”

Rudenko is one of the lucky few to have made it back. Save Ukraine says it has rescued 777 children so far out of the estimated 1.6 million who it says have been taken by the Russians.

“This is a systematic indoctrination to annihilate our identity and destroy our country by kidnapping our children,” said Mykola Kuleba, founder of Save Ukraine and a former commissioner for children’s rights for the Ukrainian government between 2014 and 2021.

The group’s investigators recently found an online catalog of 294 kidnapped Ukrainian children put up for adoption in Russia.

The database is hosted on the education department’s website in Russian-controlled Luhansk, where children are advertised for their character traits and physical features.

The Post viewed some of the posts, featuring children ranging in age from five to 15.

Russia says the children are all orphans, Save Ukraine maintains that in the majority of cases they are not, and have been forcibly separated from their families.  

In the entries “Alexandra” is pictured in a plaid black and red shirt, her profile says she is 14 years old with brown eyes and “demonstrates leadership qualities.”

The description lists: “sings well, dances, writes stories.”

The question “brothers or sisters” is answered only with “yes” and no further details.  

In another post, a five-year-old boy, Ilya, is pictured at his school desk with a pencil and coloring book. He is described as “very cheerful … loves to smile and hug,” and “always helps not only adults, but also children.”

Another girl, Angelina, is pictured on a sunny street with her hands held behind her back. She is described as 15 and “capable of sympathy” as well as “responsible about cleaning the classroom.”

“Russia isn’t even trying to hide it anymore,”  Kuleba said in a post on X. “On official platforms, Ukrainian orphans are displayed like products in an online marketplace.”

Kuleba called the database “a slave catalog” and denounced it as “digital trafficking.”

Last week, in an exclusive interview with The Post, Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska made a special plea for the return of Ukrainian children as President Trump met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to hammer out an end to the conflict in Ukraine.

“For all Ukrainians, this is one of the most heartbreaking consequences of this war,” Zelenska said. “The Russians took them — without consent, without records.”

First Lady Melania Trump issued her own plea to Putin in a “peace letter” handed to the Russian leader at the Alaska meeting.

“As parents, it is our duty to nurture the next generation’s hope,” she wrote. “As leaders, the responsibility to sustain our children extends beyond the comfort of a few.”

Some siblings have taken matters into their own hands. Ksenia, 21, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, helped rescue her 13-year-old brother.

Their situation was slightly different. They were both raised by the same foster parents, but — following a raid by soldiers on their home in Vovchansk in northeastern Ukraine — the parents decided to send the teenage brother with soldiers to be re-educated in Russia.

“They told him that Ukraine was full of Nazis who wanted to kill him,” Ksenia told The Post through the translator. “When I saw him, he was completely brainwashed.”

Upset by this, Ksenia began the “challenging journey” of assembling the necessary documentation to remove her brother from the school he had been posted to, with the help of officials at Save Ukraine.

At first, her brother was unsure about leaving Russia. But Ksenia said she was able to convince him to return to Ukraine for just a month at first, and then he could decide if he wanted to stay or go back. After spending time with his sister he decided to say and they both now live in the capital, Kyiv, where Ksenia is in her third year of a journalism degree.

She said her experience in saving her brother inspired her choice of career. “I want to find out the truth,” she said.

“I want to know about how the war has affected Ukrainian children.”