When Russia invaded Ukraine, the outbreak of war caused the separation of a family with six of their adopted children. And, hearing about some cases of forced adoptions in Russia, parents feared they would never see them again.
Shortly after the Russian offensive began at the end of February, Olga Lopatkina was seized by a feeling of panic – she immediately thought of her six adopted children who were on a trip to the coast in Mariupol, 100 km from home.
They were at a summer camp by the sea. The war broke out, and the way to the seaside town became extremely dangerous, due to intense bombing.
Olga was faced with a horrible choice: ask her husband Denis to risk everything to try to rescue them from there or leave the children in Mariupol. At that point in the war, the city still seemed relatively safe.
“We started to panic and didn’t know what to do,” she says.
The complete destruction of Mariupol ended up becoming a symbol of the cruelty of Russian bombing.
The brutal reality of the war became evident to Olga after just two days, when she encountered refugees from the east. She was shocked to see how quickly normal life had deteriorated.
Like many people in Ukraine, Olga assumed that the war would end within a few days or weeks and hoped that the children would be evacuated to a safe area by the Ukrainian authorities.
But it soon became clear that the conflict was intensifying and that the children were in extreme danger. Even if they survived the bombing, Olga worried about the future of her children under Russian control.
Reports then began to emerge of civilians, adults and children being transferred to Russia. Moscow called these transfers “evacuations.” But Ukraine classified them as forced deportations, a practice similar to the Stalin-era practice of the 1940s.
The couple began adopting children in 2016. In February of this year, when the war broke out, they had seven adopted children aged between six and 17, as well as two biological children.
“We’re crazy people, but we like it. Children give us emotions we wouldn’t otherwise have — life was empty before them,” she says.
Olga worked as a children’s music teacher and Denis, from Minas Gerais. Their lives were happy and complete. But by early March, the family was separated and scared.
The electricity in the children’s shelter in Mariupol was cut off because of the bombings, and Olga’s children were no longer able to charge their phones, making them incommunicado with their mother.
At home in the eastern city of Vuhledar, the Lopatkin family’s parents also took shelter in their basement as the war escalated. “We were bombed everywhere, it’s scary,” says Olga.
They decided to drive to Zaporijia, where some people from Mariupol were being evacuated, hoping that the Ukrainian authorities would take the children there as well.
But the city was not safe. With no sign of the children, the family decided to move to Lviv, further west.
There, a new problem arose: Denis could be drafted into the Army. Against his wishes, they decided to flee Ukraine.
Less than two weeks into the war, Olga, Denis and their three remaining children were refugees — but Olga says she never gave up hope of getting her children back.
The family was in Germany, deciding where to move, when they heard from the children.
They had been taken to a part of the Donetsk region controlled by pro-Russian separatists, where they were placed in a tuberculosis hospital. That’s because before they had taken shelter in a sanatorium for patients with respiratory problems.
Social services told the children that they had been abandoned.
The oldest son, Timofei, 17, was able to charge his phone and text Olga. He said he was offered to leave alone, but refused to stay and care for his siblings and was angry that she had left Ukraine.
“I understood that they couldn’t pick us up in Mariupol, but the fact that they went abroad really made me furious,” he says.
Feeling helpless, Olga continued to post on social media asking for help and information about her children, but received insults most of the time. Many accused her of not making enough effort to rescue the children and criticized her for leaving Ukraine. Accusations that she abandoned her children hurt her deeply.
She spoke to the international press to give her version.
“I tried every way to publicize our situation, hoping someone would hear something and be able to help,” she says.
Meanwhile, the couple was deciding where to settle in Europe. They chose the small town of Loue, in northwest France, where they established new lives, with jobs and a Red Cross-subsidized home big enough for all the children.
The mayor invited ten Ukrainian refugee families to move to the city, with benefits for families with adopted children.
In early April, Olga and Timofei established a routine of talking on the phone with their children almost every night, which helped restore their relationship.
One had to wait and hope that the Donetsk social services would agree to release the children, which they eventually did.
But it wasn’t that simple. They said they would only hand their children over to their legal guardian: Olga. And she would have to go back to the place she’d just run from.
“I was a refugee fleeing the Russian Federation and now I would have to go to the Russian Federation?”
For a while, there seemed to be an impasse. Donetsk social services were demanding that Olga submit the children’s birth certificates to prove their identity, but she feared this would lead to them being put up for adoption.
That fear was well founded. Russian TV often airs upbeat reports about the “evacuation” of civilians from Ukraine’s “liberated” regions.
Ukraine’s government says this is forced deportation which, in the case of orphaned children, amounts to kidnapping.
In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree “simplifying” the issuance of Russian documents to Ukrainian children. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said the move violates the Geneva human rights convention.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that up to two million Ukrainians had been forcibly deported to Russia, including hundreds of thousands of children.
But soon there was a glimmer of hope in Olga’s case. In June, she received a phone call. There was someone in Donetsk who could bring their children to Western Europe.
Tatiana, an experienced volunteer in Donetsk who worked with orphaned children and vulnerable mothers for many years, had a professional relationship with the authorities and was willing to help.
Olga and Denis delivered the children’s documents to Tatiana along with a release form, making her their temporary legal guardian. They had to blindly trust the volunteer, but Olga says she felt it was the right thing to do.
Still, the process was not simple. They only learned at the last moment that the paperwork had been approved. Tatiana traveled with the children to Russia, then to Latvia and Germany. Every border crossing was stressful.
“They all have different surnames and the original release form was in French. I had to explain our situation several times to countless border guards,” says Tatiana.
She took the children to Berlin, where she handed them over to Denis, who took them to his new home in Loue.
The family reunion after four months of uncertainty and anxiety was incredibly emotional.
Tears mixed with laughter as first Denis and then Olga crushed their children in hugs, still not believing they were actually seeing them.
Olga kept hugging the children, saying: “Let me see you, let me just look at you! You’ve grown so much, I haven’t seen you for so long!”
Timofei avoided showing affection: “I’m really happy that everything worked out, but I’m also older so I don’t show how happy I am. I’m happy that we’re all together again and I kept my word and brought the kids to their parents.”
Olga is eternally grateful to the woman she never met and describes as “our heroine”.
Now the family is planning a well-deserved vacation. Olga wants to travel to Portugal.
“I’ve never seen the sea,” she says. “Of course, let’s all go together. I won’t let them out of my sight again.”
This text was originally published in https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-62204717
