Ukraine says 10 children returned from Russian-held areas

Kyiv, Ukraine: Ten Ukrainian children and their families have been returned to territory under the control of Kyiv s forces after living under Russian...

Kyiv, Ukraine: Ten Ukrainian children and their families have been returned to territory under the control of Kyiv's forces after living under Russian occupation, Kyiv said on Thursday.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of abducting almost 20,000 children from parts of the east and south of Ukraine, while many more have found themselves living under Russian control after Moscow's troops invaded in February 2022.

"The children and their families lived in the temporarily occupied territories in the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions," rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said.

The Kremlin, in late 2022, claimed to have annexed those regions along with the eastern territory of Lugansk.

The Ukrainian ombudsman's office published pictures of children with their faces blurred playing with multicoloured toys.