A Ukrainian teenager who was abducted from the occupied Mariupol during the war, taken to Russia and prevented from returning to Ukraine is now in his country.

Bohdan Germokhin, who turned 18 today, appealed to President Volodymyr Zelensky to help him return to Ukraine. In March, he tried to leave Russia bound for Ukraine via Belarus, but was intercepted and sent back to Russia.

According to Ukrainian authorities, 20,000 children have been smuggled into Russia since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022 and some have been given up for adoption. Kiev denounces a war crime. Moscow denies this and claims it is “protecting children in a war zone”.

Bohdan Germohi, an orphan from Mariupol, which was captured by Russian forces during the first year of the war, was taken to Russia where she was placed with a foster family in the Moscow region.

Today, Reuters journalists in Kortelizy, a Ukrainian village on the border with Belarus, they saw the young Ukrainian being taken across the border in a van. When asked if he was happy to be back in Ukraine, he replied: “Yes.”

“We have been in constant communication with Bohdan and he is already in Ukraine with his cousin,” Andriy Yermak, director of President Zelensky’s office, said via Telegram.

Mariam Lambert of the Dutch NGO Orphans Feeding Foundation told Reuters they were working with Ukraine’s ombudsman and Volodymyr Zelensky’s office to return children abducted by Russia.

Bohdan Germohin’s lawyer said the young man received a summons to report to a recruitment center near Moscow next month and was notified that he might be conscripted into the Russian army.

In a statement, Russian Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova says she has been called to update his military enlistment details and that “all Russian citizens of this age receive subpoenas of this kind.”

Lvova-Belova stated that Bohdan Germohin departed by plane from Russia to Minsk en route to Ukraine and that he met his cousin in the Belarusian capital. He admitted that the young Ukrainian wanted to be reunited with his relative.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Marchaccusing him and Lvova-Belova of the war crime of abducting children from Ukraine.