We have a lot of barriers because, first of all, a Ukrainian relative of any kid will not be able to go to Russia. It's very hard. You cannot tell them that you want to take your kid back to the Ukrainian side. Even if you're going from the occupied territories, you have dozens of checkpoints, and Russian special services and Russian soldiers will always interrogate you.
We had one grandmother who tried to reach her granddaughter. After 14 hours of interrogation, she died the next day, and the child disappeared. We couldn't find that 13-year-old girl for two years.
Many children, after coming to the Russian system, disappear. It's very important for us to rescue these kids soon after we know something about them. This is because we have many kids who've been rescued from forcible conscription. We have a lot of kids who received draft notices for the Russian army at 16 or 17 years old, and we have kids who've been taken to Russian military camps or Russian military academies. We have kids whose parents were arrested, killed or disappeared. Not only do these kids have huge trauma, but these kids have also been entrapped in Russia, and they have no hope. That's why it's so important to find them.
You can find, in new Russian legislation, that everybody must be registered in the Russian system, not only to receive Russian citizenship but also to use the official Russian Internet. Through the official Internet, Russian special services control all your movements. They control all your photos and every call in your phone. That's why we are using technical tools, and we educate the ones who stay there on how to avoid this, how to safely communicate.
I can tell you many stories of how we're doing this, but maybe those would be better told privately.
