[Witness spoke in Ukrainian, interpreted as follows:]
Greetings.
I am Kseniia. I'm 19 years old. I have a younger brother, Serhiy. He is 12 years old. We are children without parents.
Two years ago, we were in a foster family. That's when the aggression began. We were in one of the first cities—Vovchans’k—where Russian troops arrived. We lived in conditions of military action. We had to take cover. We had to hide. There was constant shelling in the streets. There were Russian patrols and Russian military machinery. Our lives changed.
In the summer of 2022, our teacher recommended persuasively and intensely that we had to go and study in Russia. Most parents agreed to those proposals because they didn't want to have conflicts with occupational authorities. That's how we arrived in Russia.
At the same time, my brother was taken to a camp in the Krasnodar region with the pretext of a health scan. It was to be for a brief period, but it actually was a very long period.
After two months, I was expelled for my pro-Ukrainian position from a housing facility at the college where I was studying. I didn't want to take a Russian passport. I didn't take a proposal for free housing. After all this happened, I met someone and I stayed with that person.
At this time, my brother stayed in Russia. He was eventually placed with a foster family. During that time, I knew where he was. At the end of the winter, I was in a tough psychological place or mental place, and I knew that I wanted to go back to Ukraine, but I didn't know how to achieve that. I started to look at the possibilities for how to get back to Ukraine. I promised myself that I would go back only with my brother.
With a person I knew from my hometown, I contacted the social services of my city, and I found out about the Save Ukraine organization. They started to help me plan the process of getting back to my homeland. I understood that they were the people who would help me to come back. When I had all the papers and I was able to come, and when my brother had the papers, Russians started to pressure him, saying that he should not go back to Ukraine, that there was a war and that Ukrainians are Nazis and that he would be better off in Russia.
I was told that my brother did not want to go back, which really surprised me. I was really worried that I would not be able to take him with me, but I got myself collected and I went to where he was. Once I was there, I understood that he really did not want to go back. We spent three hours talking to each other. I was trying to explain to him that if he did not go, then we would not see each other and we would not be able to be together as a family. Then he was asked whether or not he wanted to go with me and he said yes.
After a few days at the borders of Russia and Belarus, we were not allowed to say that we were going back to Ukraine, because we would not be allowed to return. We had a few days of an exhausting trip. We were worried that we would not get back, that we would have to stay in Russia, but we still managed to come back to Ukraine. Then we were in a Save Ukraine centre, where we were provided with medical and psychological assistance.
Right now, my brother is in foster care with a great Ukrainian family. He has his own room, which he's really happy about. I work in the Save Ukraine organization and I try to work on saving the children who were forcibly transferred to Russia and had to live under occupational Russian authorities.
I know that Ukraine will triumph in the war and that Russia will be punished for all of its crimes. I hope that no more children will be forced to become Russian.
Thank you.