0:01

Since the beginning of the war in

0:03

Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian children have been

0:05

taken and held in Russian controlled territory.

0:08

The new report accusing Russia of abducting

0:10

thousands of Ukrainian children in a massive

0:13

re-education effort to support Putin's Eames. The

0:15

International Criminal Court has issued arrest

0:18

warrants for Vladimir Putin and his

0:20

children's commissioner, accusing them of war

0:22

crimes over the unlawful deportation of

0:24

children from Ukraine. The Children of

0:26

Ukraine is a new documentary from

0:28

Frontline examining the plight of

0:30

these children. Do you remember

0:32

what happened when you were in the car

0:35

when the loud gun shots her?

0:38

Paul Kenyon directed and produced the film.

0:41

In Ukraine, he met families desperate

0:43

for answers and teens who escaped

0:46

Russian custody. And he

0:48

followed investigators as they worked to track

0:50

down missing children and document what happened.

0:54

We're still hoping to bring them back

0:56

home. They are still our children. He

0:58

joined me to talk about making this documentary.

1:01

I'm Reini Erinsen-Roth, Editor-in-Chief and Executive

1:04

Producer of Frontline, and this is

1:06

the Frontline Dispatch. The

1:22

Frontline Dispatch is made possible by

1:24

the Abrams Foundation, committed to excellence

1:27

in journalism, and by the Frontline

1:29

Journalism Fund, with major support from

1:31

John and Joanne Hagler. Support

1:33

for Frontline Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General

1:36

Hospital Cancer Center, dedicated to

1:38

providing compassionate care and cancer specialists who are

1:40

experienced in the cancer you have. When

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you hear the word cancer, their team is ready.

1:45

Learn more at MassGeneral.org-cancer.

1:49

Paul, thanks so much for joining me on the Dispatch. It's

1:52

good to be with you. So let's start

1:54

with how you became interested in the story. Take

1:56

me back to when you first heard about

1:59

what was happening. and why you decided to

2:01

take on the story. I've been

2:03

going to Ukraine since 2014. So

2:06

I was in Crimea when the Russians

2:08

came and took over Crimea. And

2:11

then I spent a lot of time in Donetsk and Luhansk

2:13

after that. So I had a long history of going to

2:15

Ukraine and I was there at the beginning of the war

2:18

in 2022, so in February. So

2:20

I spent a lot of time in Ukraine travelling

2:23

to the front, making documentaries. And

2:26

this was a story that a number

2:28

of people had been speaking about as

2:30

a possibility and saying that children had

2:32

been disappearing from children's homes and from

2:34

boarding schools, and being taken

2:36

across the border into Russian-held territory.

2:38

In fact, I've got to be

2:40

absolutely clear. These stories started coming

2:42

out shortly after 2014. So

2:45

there were people even then who said, in

2:48

the area of Donbass that has

2:50

been taken over by Russia, children

2:52

are taken without their parents' authority

2:54

to camps in Russian-held territory. And

2:58

the parents are sometimes told, if you don't

3:00

agree, bad things will happen to you. If

3:02

you don't agree, we will take the children anyway. These

3:04

were the kind of stories that we'd been hearing for

3:06

a while, but it was always going to be difficult

3:08

to prove. Anyway, in 2022, when

3:10

the war started, as the Russians took

3:12

territory in the east of Ukraine, more

3:15

of these stories started to surface. And then

3:17

as the tide, if you retreated

3:19

and the Russians were pushed back and

3:22

the Ukrainians liberated their

3:24

lands, these stories became more

3:26

doable. Because then you could go and talk

3:28

to families who would say, my children wrote

3:30

a camp when the war started. We've not

3:33

seen them since. My child was at school

3:35

when the war started. We've not seen them

3:37

since. So then he began to take shape

3:39

and we were able to go and investigate

3:41

properly. Paul, one of the first

3:43

stories we hear about in the film is

3:45

just, it's truly unforgettable. It's about a little

3:47

boy named Max who's been missing for more than

3:49

two years by the time you're filming. Tell

3:52

us about Max and his family. So

3:55

Max is a little boy who was three

3:57

years old at the beginning of the war

3:59

in 2015. And he was

4:01

living in Marry-O-Paul with his mother

4:04

and with his father and his

4:06

little brother and sister. And then the

4:08

war started and they needed to get out. And

4:10

getting out was the moment where their

4:12

lives changed forever because as they were

4:15

trying to get out in the car with

4:17

their grandparents, suddenly

4:20

they came around a bend in

4:22

Marry-O-Paul and a group of soldiers

4:24

opened fire. And many

4:26

people in the car were killed. And

4:30

at the beginning it was still Max had been killed.

4:32

So there he is, this little baby, we think he

4:34

was found under the body of his

4:36

mother who sadly was killed. So the

4:39

mother was killed, the grandfather was killed,

4:42

and little Max, they

4:44

thought he was dead at the beginning. He was

4:46

wounded. But when Ukrainian soldiers managed to get him

4:49

out of the car, they realized in fact he

4:51

was still alive. And that's

4:53

when the mystery really began. When the

4:55

little boy, Max, ended up at the

4:57

hospital with, we think, his father, at

5:00

that point they lost contact with him, nobody knows

5:02

what happened. And within that

5:04

two or three day period is when the Russians

5:06

were taking over Marry-O-Paul and took over the hospitals.

5:09

So in the hospital, the father

5:12

is there. Tell me about the state of

5:14

his father at this time. We

5:16

think the father was seriously injured,

5:19

but not life-threateningly so. And

5:22

then everything becomes fuzzy. So nobody knows

5:24

where Max is, and nobody knows where

5:26

Max's father is. But there is an

5:28

assumption, a very strong assumption by the

5:30

family and those who've been looking for

5:33

little Max, that he is alive. The

5:35

last information that was reliable was that

5:37

the hospital had said he survived. And

5:39

we know this from a doctor who

5:41

then talked to a Ukrainian soldier. I

5:44

mean these are all sort of, these

5:46

are little sort

5:48

of webs of information, little grids

5:51

of information. You have to,

5:53

who can you rely on? It's kind of

5:55

an atypical situation for journalists because we like

5:57

to nail things down. family,

6:00

you know what I mean? And we can't really

6:02

nail it down. Right. And that's the

6:04

mystery of the story of Max was

6:06

what happened to Max and it's really

6:08

central to your film. So Max has

6:10

one of many stories, right? The Ukrainian

6:13

government says that about 19,000

6:15

Ukrainian children are being held in

6:17

Russian territories. The International Criminal Court

6:20

issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir

6:22

Putin and for his

6:24

children's commissioner for

6:26

unlawful deportation and transfer of

6:28

children. So let's talk

6:31

about the Russia response to this.

6:33

Russia doesn't necessarily deny that there are

6:36

Ukrainian children in their custody, but what

6:38

are they saying? Well,

6:40

the Russians say we're saving

6:42

lives. We're saving the lives of

6:44

children on the front line because

6:46

when we progress into Ukrainian held

6:48

territory, there's bombing from both sides.

6:50

And so what we're doing is

6:52

we're taking children from schools, boarding

6:54

schools, orphanages, et cetera, and we're

6:56

taking them back away from the

6:58

front into Russian held territory to

7:01

save them, to protect them from shelling. And

7:04

the Ukrainians get furious about

7:06

this and say absolute nonsense.

7:08

This is just an excuse. What you're

7:10

really doing is you're kidnapping kids. You're

7:12

taking them back into Russian held territory

7:14

and then you're feeding them

7:16

propaganda, Russian propaganda. You're addressing them

7:19

in Russian uniforms and

7:21

you're changing their views on their homeland.

7:23

So what you're doing is you're raising,

7:25

the Ukrainians would say, their national

7:27

identity. But the Russians maintain very

7:30

strongly that all they're doing all

7:32

the way through this is protecting

7:34

children from frontline activities. Paul,

7:37

there's a really vivid moment in the film.

7:39

I want you to describe it. It's in

7:41

the archive. You see children on stage being

7:43

hugged by Russian officials. Tell me about that

7:45

scene. Yeah.

7:47

Well, this is one year after the

7:49

war began. So this is in the

7:51

spring of 2023 and Vladimir Putin

7:56

is talking to a huge.

8:00

stadium full of our supporters. I mean,

8:02

it's so many people. Yeah, and these

8:04

are people celebrating like it's a football

8:06

match. It looks like a huge sporting

8:08

event. And they

8:10

bring a group of children onto the stage

8:12

in front of these screaming and cheering crowds.

8:15

People screaming and cheering in excitement because of

8:17

their support for what's happening. They bring

8:19

on these small children, some of them, you

8:21

know, three or four years old it

8:24

seems to me. One

8:26

of the older children is given a microphone

8:29

and says, We come from

8:31

Marry-O-Pul, which is a Ukrainian city,

8:33

which was taken by Russia early in the

8:35

war. So they're from Marry-O-Pul.

8:37

With lots of people encouraging her and

8:40

smiling and applauding on the stage, she

8:42

says, Thank you for saving us. Thank

8:45

you for saving us. And

8:47

she is encouraged to go across and hug a

8:50

rather imposing soldier who's standing there, who is

8:52

apparently in Marry-O-Pul at the time. And

8:55

she calls him Uncle Yuri and

8:57

says, Thank you for saving us, Uncle. But

8:59

the children who have been taken advantage of

9:01

for displays of propaganda like this, they don't

9:03

know who was shelling who.

9:07

So this was children

9:10

being used as political

9:12

leverage and political tools

9:15

to celebrate what Putin

9:17

has been doing with children. Right.

9:20

So in some cases, Ukrainian families have

9:22

been able to retrieve their children from

9:24

Russian territories. What have you

9:26

learned from that process? What have

9:28

the families told you? What have the kids been

9:30

able to talk about? Yeah,

9:34

you're right. It has

9:36

happened. And it's a

9:38

sort of slightly complex formula because there is no

9:40

tried and tested route. And let's put it this

9:43

way. It was informal, I think is a good

9:45

way of saying it. And so that we're

9:47

told by some of the agencies who began to

9:49

assist some of the Ukrainian agencies,

9:51

they would assist mothers going

9:54

to try and find their children. If you

9:56

can get into Russia, get across the

9:58

border, not get questioned. by Putin's

10:00

secret police and you manage to get

10:02

to a place where you know your

10:04

child is, you might be able to

10:06

negotiate with a local governor who might

10:08

feel pity upon you. And if

10:11

you've got the right documentation, they

10:13

may let your child go. So there's

10:15

an organization that we spend a lot of time with in

10:18

this program, which is called Save Ukraine. And

10:21

some of them are lawyers, and some

10:23

of them are social workers, and they

10:25

get together mini buses to get across

10:27

the border. They don't go directly across

10:29

the Russian border. They go through Belarus.

10:32

Then sometimes they will catch a plane, and they

10:34

will organize for groups of mothers to go and

10:36

try and find their children. A lot of these

10:38

groups of mothers who think they know where their

10:41

child is, they never manage to get there. They

10:43

get turned back by Russian security before they get

10:45

anywhere near. Paul, there's a moment

10:47

in the film where there's a group of mothers,

10:50

you know, you just talked about them, mothers and

10:52

even a grandmother who were talking about, you know,

10:54

what it's going to take to get these kids

10:56

back and that they'll risk their lives. And I

10:58

have to say, I wondered, why are

11:01

they the ones venturing there?

11:03

Why aren't soldiers and or the

11:05

government of Ukraine brokering these returns

11:07

of children? Well,

11:09

the first thing is that all their

11:11

husbands and the majority of

11:14

men of that age, they're going to

11:16

be in the military. Right. And also,

11:18

if you're called to the Ukrainian man

11:20

inside Russia, you're going to be picked

11:22

up as a spy very

11:24

quickly. So it falls upon the

11:26

mothers. It's a good question

11:28

about why the military, the Ukrainian military don't.

11:31

But as as it's become more difficult

11:34

to go and collect your children, there

11:36

has been a slight change, interestingly, over

11:38

the last few months, which is that

11:40

the Ukrainian government has started to do

11:43

negotiations with Russia

11:46

to bring back these kids. And

11:48

it's all about prisoner swabs,

11:51

prisoner swabs and children coming

11:53

home. What's happening currently? And

11:57

what kind of results are they seeing? This,

12:01

intriguingly for us as journalists,

12:04

is something that they don't really want

12:06

to talk about because they don't want

12:08

that particular channel of communication to be

12:10

damaged in any way. But what we

12:12

can say is that it is bringing

12:14

children back. I've seen photographs

12:16

of groups of Euclidean children

12:18

who've just come across the border and by this time

12:20

are in the Baltic states. So

12:23

they're brought across a friendly border and

12:25

they're there with relief workers who I

12:27

know. Now the Russians

12:29

will say, well that means the system's working,

12:32

doesn't it? That we're talking to Ukraine, that

12:34

children are being found, that if you can

12:36

prove that you are the guardian, the legal

12:38

guardian, then the children are coming back. So

12:41

things are functioning. So there is some kind

12:43

of cooperation. So

12:45

Paul, what are you hearing from these families and

12:48

what are you hearing from the kids about their

12:50

time in Russia? So

12:52

we met quite a few kids who have spent

12:54

time in Russian held territory. And

12:57

one of the themes we heard about a lot was

13:00

being made to sing the Russian anthem. So

13:04

these are Ukrainian kids being

13:07

made to sing the anthem of

13:09

the country that is invading their own

13:11

country and which their fathers are fighting

13:14

against and

13:16

which their families are opposed to. And

13:19

we know this because they're in the program

13:21

and funnily enough, some of them we actually

13:23

have photographs of being

13:25

made to wear Russian

13:27

army uniforms in

13:29

educational establishments in Russian held territory.

13:32

So one of the boys in

13:34

our program, we see

13:36

him. He's there with a Russian army uniform. I think he

13:38

was 16 at the time, 15 or 16. And

13:43

he's got that Z which we're all familiar with on his

13:45

arm. And he

13:47

says, I was made even on our

13:50

days off, we had to sing the

13:52

Russian anthem. And the Ukrainians

13:54

Will say it's propaganda and it

13:56

is changing minds and it is

13:58

erasing national history. The identity is what the

14:01

Ukrainians would say and that is very much would it

14:03

looks like. The. Journalism

14:05

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gift had frontline.org slashed dispatch. Thank.

14:21

You. So.

14:23

You traveled Paul with members of a

14:25

group called I P H R that

14:28

the International Partnership for Human Rights and

14:30

you went with them into the territories

14:32

reclaimed from Russian occupation areas not far

14:34

from the frontlines of the water. Tell

14:37

us about this group in their mission

14:39

and where did you travel with them?

14:42

So. Yeah the like a were that

14:44

really brave group of individuals to women

14:47

and a man and the young people

14:49

who feel very very strongly passionately about

14:51

this and their job is to go

14:54

into recently liberated out with collect evidence

14:56

and give it to the International Criminal

14:58

court so they can decide whether or

15:00

not war cries of being committed and

15:03

so you know the territory they have

15:05

to go to. His. Lead

15:07

The tide has receded if you like.

15:09

The Russian tide has receded and the

15:11

evidence. Is. Laid bare from their

15:14

positions so they can only go

15:16

an interview people when the Russians

15:18

read and fine as a what's

15:20

happening that territory. so they go

15:22

down the front through dumbass. And

15:24

we went to her son with them. All.

15:27

This area is right up against the

15:29

from line. And. These little towns

15:31

and villages where the Russians has been

15:33

pushed as a by the Ukrainians and

15:35

where they now select the residents. And.

15:37

Them. You. Know it's a

15:40

dangerous job the Ip A till to the

15:42

utterly committed that will linger in the city

15:44

of her some. The. Russians are still

15:46

on the other side of the river which

15:48

runs for the sense with her son. So

15:50

unique couple of kilometers away. from

15:52

the from line and these people go there

15:54

they take the risk they go in to

15:56

be children they want to find out what

15:58

happened to these children said They don't want

16:00

second or third-hand accounts. They want to speak

16:02

to the children themselves to discover

16:05

what happened. So that's what they do.

16:07

And it's, you know, it's a job

16:09

which takes them into very dangerous territory.

16:11

And we were very fortunate to

16:13

be allowed to film this. In one

16:15

scene, we watch as the

16:17

investigators interview a Ukrainian girl

16:19

named Anastasia, who had

16:21

just been returned to her family. Tell

16:24

me about Anastasia and just explain to

16:26

me what happened to her. Anastasia

16:29

is a really remarkable,

16:31

bubbly, excitable, probably slightly

16:33

temperamental kid. And

16:36

she, it's a fascinating story because right

16:38

at the beginning of the war, one

16:41

of her school teachers said to her

16:43

parents, it's really important that

16:45

children go to a camp in

16:47

Crimea. It'll give them a break

16:49

from the fighting and they'll feel

16:52

a lot safer there. So Anastasia

16:54

and her sister went off. They agreed to go

16:56

to the camp because they thought, well, a two-week

16:58

holiday, what child is going

17:00

to turn down a two-week holiday out

17:03

in the sea? So they both agreed to go. The

17:05

two weeks turned into three weeks, turned into two

17:07

months, three months, four months, turned into six months.

17:11

And by this time, they realized that they

17:13

were not free to go whenever they

17:15

wanted. And in fact, they

17:18

heard officials, the Russian officials around the

17:20

camp began to talk to them about

17:23

the possibility of being fostered by

17:25

a Russian family. And of course, that's

17:27

enormously distressing, as Anastasia said to us.

17:30

She said, I thought they were insane.

17:33

I've got my own family back in her soul.

17:35

I wanted to go home. I didn't want to

17:37

go to a Russian foster family. You

17:40

know, Anastasia, the scene with her is

17:42

one of the most vivid scenes in

17:44

the film where you get a real

17:46

sense of the impact on children. And

17:50

we spent a lot of time talking about

17:52

how do you manage these conversations with kids,

17:54

with the parents there. How did you manage

17:56

that? Yeah, so really good

17:58

questions. I think the feeling is, you

18:00

know, among some of these families, they're

18:03

very war scarred. They say, well, you

18:06

know, it was their experience. This is what

18:08

they lived. And there's no point

18:10

in me telling you about his second hand.

18:12

They lifted, asked them. And we had parents

18:14

saying to us, don't ask us, ask the

18:17

children. They were the ones who were there.

18:19

And I find it quite a healthy attitude,

18:21

actually, rather than, you know, particularly for a

18:23

journalist, it's great to get to a first

18:26

hand account, but also to give the children

18:28

their own voice, you know, as long as they

18:30

didn't feel under any pressure. Yeah, I

18:32

think in filmmaking and documentary filmmaking, you

18:34

know, there's always that fine line, right

18:36

of voyeurism versus actually giving somebody a

18:39

voice. And I think what I

18:41

saw in the way that you talk to these

18:43

children is that there was a

18:45

respectful conversation. You didn't go too far. You're

18:47

able to let them share what they wanted

18:50

to share. And that was really important to

18:52

me. So what is the

18:54

latest, Paul, that you can tell us

18:56

about the ICC? Have you heard any

18:58

major movement in terms of the

19:00

International Criminal Court? Not

19:03

really. I think what's happening is the

19:05

ICC are diligently collecting the evidence. But you

19:07

know, they already think they've got a

19:09

very strong case. But of course,

19:12

we know that realistically, how do

19:14

you get him? How do you

19:16

get him always children's commissioner who's

19:18

also wanted by the ICC? You

19:20

know, that's it's something that's not

19:22

realistically going to happen as things

19:24

stand. And it's quite difficult to

19:26

imagine a scenario where Putin will

19:28

ever end up in the

19:30

Hague. And the Russian response to

19:32

all this is the ICC is

19:35

talking absolute nonsense. And we are

19:37

going to start investigating the ICC.

19:40

So the

19:42

idea that ICC is going to come to

19:45

any conclusion about this

19:47

in terms of assessing the evidence and

19:49

hearing from Putin side soon is not

19:51

very likely. Paul, when

19:54

you think about this story, you've turned so

19:56

many films out of Ukraine. What stays with

19:58

you the most from this documentary? Well,

20:01

you know, I suppose there's

20:03

one scene that will stay with me,

20:06

which was Max's little sister. And

20:09

it goes back to what you were saying earlier about

20:11

interviewing children. And I

20:13

said to her

20:15

aunt, her guardian, I was saying,

20:17

you know, what does she remember about Max? Little

20:20

Max, can she tell us a bit about etc, etc. And

20:23

the auntie said, why don't

20:25

you just ask her to say it yourself? She's

20:27

the one who'll be able to tell you from the heart what

20:30

this is like. So we put her in front of

20:32

the camera. And she

20:34

has a little brother as well, who

20:36

was Max's brother. And they both sat in front of

20:39

the camera. And we were about to

20:41

start the interview and the little boy suddenly just

20:43

burst into tears and wanted

20:45

to be taken away. And I said,

20:47

of course, of course, letting be taken away. And

20:50

I asked the little girl, I asked her a couple

20:52

of questions and I thought, I've got to be really

20:54

cautious about this because you've got to

20:56

ask things like, you know, I always start off

20:58

interviews like that with so what's your favorite subject

21:00

of school? And you know,

21:02

what do you like doing at school? And it's just

21:04

nice easy questions. And then I said to her, you

21:06

know, what are your your memories of Max? And

21:09

she was quite good. And then I said, and

21:11

then you get to the key question. The key

21:13

question was, what happened on the day that you

21:15

were ambushed by those soldiers in Marry-O-Pole? And

21:18

I put it in a very different way. I just

21:20

said, what happened on the day that you heard

21:22

all those loud gunshots? And

21:24

she sat there and she had a big

21:26

smile on her face and a smile sort

21:28

of it continued. But she just looked into

21:30

the air and looked both ways. And she

21:32

said, I can't remember.

21:35

And because she's blocked it out. And

21:37

I knew she she's going to be suffering in

21:39

a way which none of us can really understand.

21:42

And you know, she's she's blocked this out of

21:44

her memory. And the reason I remember it is

21:46

because I just thought she was such

21:48

an innocent child to have lost a brother, a

21:51

mother, a father in an ambush

21:53

in Marry-O-Pole and then be sitting there with

21:55

a broad smile on her face trying to

21:58

answer questions from member of the foreign impressed.

22:01

And when she said

22:03

I can't, basically it's here for

22:05

now, because when she said I just can't remember,

22:07

I looked at her and I thought, I can't

22:09

go on with this. And I said, I can't

22:12

ask her any more questions, because it just doesn't

22:14

feel right. And she was so pleased she had

22:16

a little fairy dress on. Yeah, I saw that.

22:18

And she wanted to be treated like a sort

22:21

of princess, but she was so pleased that she

22:23

done the interview, that she was smiling and skipping

22:25

afterwards. But you know, I just knew

22:27

there was no further I could have taken her

22:29

into that trauma. Right. Well, I think

22:32

that's what I was talking about. You really do

22:34

get the sense that you respected the children and

22:36

what they could share or not share. And it's

22:38

a really vivid moment. Well, really

22:40

appreciate the humanity at the center of

22:42

this. And all of your

22:44

journalism around it was fascinating to hear about

22:47

as well. Thanks for joining me on the

22:49

dispatch, Paul. Thank you. Cheers. Thanks.

22:55

Thanks again to Paul Kenyon for joining

22:57

me on the dispatch. You

22:59

can watch Children of Ukraine on

23:02

frontline.org, Frontline's YouTube channel and the

23:04

PBS app. This

23:11

podcast was produced by Emily Pisa

23:13

Kreda. Chris Anderson is our audio

23:15

engineer. Maria Diocno is

23:18

our director of audience development. Catherine

23:21

Guiver is our story editor and

23:23

coordinating producer. Dan Edge

23:25

is our senior producer. Lauren Azel

23:28

is our senior editor of Investigations.

23:31

Andrew Metz is our managing editor. I'm

23:34

Rainey Aronson-Ross, editor-in-chief and executive

23:36

producer of Frontline. Music

23:38

in this episode is by Cell Wagon

23:40

Symptom. The Frontline dispatch is

23:42

produced at GBH and powered by

23:45

PRX. Thanks for listening. From

23:54

PRX.