When Ukrainian children’s dwelling director Liubov Rudyka took the minors in her care to Naples after Russia invaded, she thought she was bringing them to security. It by no means occurred to her that Italy won’t need to give them again. And but, 4 years later, their return has turn into a authorized battlefield.
Ukrainian authorities have informed NCS that a number of children who have been evacuated to Italy with Rudyka are amongst dozens of Ukrainian minors whose return dwelling has been prevented by the Italian courts. A dispute over their state of affairs escalated in April, after Kyiv introduced that one of the Ukrainian children, a 15-year-old boy named Sasha, had been legally adopted by an Italian household – regardless of having a mom who needs him to return to Ukraine.
Kyiv argues that the evacuations have been meant to be short-term and that whereas the conflict continues, the state of affairs has stabilized in components of the nation and there are protected locations for the children to return to. The Ukrainian authorities’s major fear is that the longer the children keep overseas, the much less probably they’re to return sooner or later – a worrying prospect for a rustic that faces a significant demographic disaster.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, informed NCS that Italy is refusing to cooperate with Kyiv on the difficulty and is stopping Ukrainian authorities from checking on the children’s welfare.
“We continue to send official requests (and) the Italian representatives are telling us that the judiciary is completely independent and that they cannot influence this decision. But I demand that they intervene,” he informed NCS, going so far as likening the state of affairs to the circumstances of 1000’s of Ukrainian children who’ve been illegally deported to Russia. The Kremlin denies this and says it evacuated Ukrainian children for their very own security.
“(Italy’s) attitude is, in fact, no different from the Russian side’s position… they have taken our children away and are denying us access to them,” he mentioned.
NCS has repeatedly contacted the Italian authorities, the Italian Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents, the Commission for International Adoption and the courtroom that dominated on the adoption for remark. All declined, citing privateness legal guidelines regarding minors.
The children’s dwelling that Rudyka oversaw was in Sumy, a metropolis in northern Ukraine that was nearly fully surrounded by Russian troops within the first days of the full-scale invasion in early 2022.
According to Rudyka, a charity which had beforehand organized holidays for the children contacted her with a suggestion to evacuate them to Italy. She made the journey to the southern Italian metropolis of Naples in the summertime of 2022 with the 25 children in her care.
“I thought it would be like a summer camp: the children would spend some time in Italy and then return,” Rudyka informed NCS. “But then, after about three weeks, perhaps a month, the children began to be assigned Italian (legal) guardians,” she mentioned.
While Rudyka was the children’s authorized guardian below Ukrainian legislation, the Italian authorities didn’t acknowledge her as such. Instead, NCS’s reporting has confirmed, they handled the children as unaccompanied minors, gave them refugee standing and assigned them new guardians.
This strategy is rooted in Italian legislation. Rome strengthened authorized protections for baby refugees amid the European migrant disaster a decade in the past. Among different provisions, it launched a ban on the return or removing of any unaccompanied baby from Italy except ordered by a courtroom in distinctive circumstances.
But this meant that Ukraine was basically shut out from making any choices in regards to the destiny of the evacuated children.
Rosa Emanuela Lo Faro, an Italian lawyer who represents some of the minors, informed NCS that in some circumstances the children have been fully lower off from their lives again in Ukraine.
“There was a ban on communicating with (their) guardians in Ukraine, Ukrainian friends, all Ukrainian people. The child could only communicate with their Italian guardians and that’s it,” she mentioned.
Lo Faro has labored with the Ukrainian authorities and managed to get some of the guardianship choices overturned by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, however she informed NCS the state of affairs stays very difficult.
She mentioned in some circumstances, foster households wishing to undertake the children put strain on the authorities. “(They argue) that they’re better off here, that they are doing well here and that if they return to Ukraine, they (would) have war instead,” she mentioned.
‘Please leave the children here until the war is over’
When a big group of Ukrainian orphans arrived in Rota d’Imagna, a small municipality within the northern Italian area of Lombardy in 2022, native instructor Diego Mosca helped place them in colleges and began organizing weekend and trip actions for them. He enlisted the assistance of his cousin, Michela Noris.
“My husband and I do not have children, but we wanted to give these children some relief, so they can have some good time outside the institutions and so we said, okay, we can try to host,” she informed NCS.
Noris mentioned they began with one 11-year-old boy, however then took his sister and others. “In the end we hosted something like 10, 12 children and we had to come up with a rota system,” she informed NCS.
The program labored nicely – till the summer season of 2024, when the Ukrainian employees who arrived with the children introduced they’d be returning dwelling.
Noris and the opposite households concerned in internet hosting have been horrified. She began a petition asking for one of the best pursuits of the children to be thought of – it gathered greater than 18,000 signatures.
“We don’t want the children here in Italy forever. We just said, ‘Listen, guys, we know that the situation in Ukraine is terrible. The war is still ongoing. Just please leave the children here until the war is over, and then take them back.’”
Sasha was solely 10 when a courtroom in Ukraine dominated that he and his two sisters could be faraway from their dad and mom’ care because of a troublesome home state of affairs, in line with courtroom paperwork. The three siblings have been dwelling within the children’s dwelling in Sumy when the conflict began and have been among the many 25 children who traveled to Italy with Rudyka.
Sasha’s dad and mom didn’t lose their parental rights when the courtroom took the children away from them, in line with the ruling, and NCS is not publishing their household title to guard their privateness. Rudyka mentioned the expectation was that the children would return to their dad and mom as soon as their dwelling state of affairs improved – however the invasion prevented that taking place.
In 2023, because it turned clear the conflict wouldn’t finish rapidly, Ukrainian authorities determined to convey the children again to the nation, discovering safer properties for them in western Ukraine. Rudyka discovered a spot for the children in Ternopil, in western Ukraine.
The Ukrainian consulate in Naples started submitting requests for his or her return with Italian courts. But as Rudyka quickly discovered, the courtroom proceedings have been performed individually for every baby – with typically very totally different outcomes.
“That is why it turned out that some children returned, whilst others remained. As of today, we still have five children in Italy,” Rudyka informed NCS.
Sasha’s two sisters have been allowed to return to Ukraine, however in Sasha’s case, the courts dominated towards his return – and, in April, accepted his adoption by the Italian household who had been fostering him since 2022.
Still solely 15 years outdated, the boy is now on the heart of a world dispute.
A spokesperson for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, informed NCS that its official place is that, given the conflict, returns to Ukraine ought to solely occur voluntarily and provided that they’re decided by the host nation to be in one of the best pursuits of the kid.
Lo Faro mentioned that Italian juvenile courts, assisted by baby psychologists, are supposed to take children’s opinions into consideration when making choices. But she famous this is particularly difficult within the circumstances of Ukrainian children who got here to Italy at a really younger age and keep in mind little from their lives in Ukraine.
“It’s obvious that they say what the Italian family wants, because they have forgotten what they did in Ukraine, even the language and the customs, and they’ve taken on all the Italian habits of course,” she mentioned.
It is unclear what Sasha needs – NCS has not been capable of contact him. According to Lo Faro, he consented to the adoption. However, his household mentioned he informed them he wished to come back again to Ukraine, whereas Rudyka informed NCS that when she requested him what he wished, he mentioned he didn’t know.
Mosca, the instructor who coordinated this system in Rota d’Imagna, mentioned that many of the children in his care seem torn, dwelling “with half their heart on one side and half their heart on the other.”
Sasha’s father, a Ukrainian soldier combating within the conflict, has been formally lacking in motion since 2025. His mom, Natalia, informed NCS she needs Sasha to come back again to dwell in Ukraine; the Ukrainian authorities help her on this. She believes he’s been prevented from speaking along with his Ukrainian household.
“I’ve sent him my best wishes (for his birthday), but they won’t let him speak to anyone at all – not to me, not to his sisters, not to anyone,” she informed NCS.
NCS has requested the juvenile courtroom in Lecce, which thought of the case, for particulars. It refused, citing authorized causes.
Lo Faro mentioned she is now attempting to get Sasha’s adoption blocked, with a listening to scheduled for later this month.
According to Ukrainian authorities, greater than 4,800 children have been evacuated from Ukrainian residential colleges and houses to a number of European international locations in 2022. Some have been orphans whereas others, like Sasha and his sisters, had been positioned into state care.
Lubinets, the Ukrainian ombudsman, informed NCS there are at the moment greater than 300 children whose return to Ukraine is being prevented by native authorities, most of them in Italy, Germany and Austria.
Volodymyr Ivanyuta, who has been appointed by the Ukrainian authorities to signify some of the Ukrainian children in Italy, mentioned over time he has seen Italian courts more and more rule towards the return of children to Ukraine, no matter their state of affairs.
“We have children living with a family that is doing (everything) to prevent their return,” he mentioned. “Then there are children in our care who are in children’s homes, they have no specific people interested in them, and yet these children are still not allowed to return (by Italian courts).”
Ivan’s youthful siblings are amongst these children. Ivan, now 20, and his 4 brothers have been taken into state care in 2017 as a result of their mom was struggling to take care of them. When the full-scale conflict began, the three youngest boys have been evacuated to a children’s dwelling in Modica, Sicily, the place two, who’re nonetheless minors, stay; the third now lives on his personal in Italy, Ivan mentioned.
“Their living conditions are more or less normal; they are being fed, but overall, they don’t really like it there,” Ivan, who is at the moment in Germany, and attempting to get the brothers again collectively, mentioned of his siblings within the children’s dwelling. “I asked them if they wanted to return to Ukraine. They say yes.”
Ivan mentioned that whereas he is allowed to speak along with his youngest brothers, his requests to go to have been rejected by these in cost. “This is a terrible situation… I still don’t understand the reasons,” he mentioned.
The facility’s director refused to remark to NCS on the case, citing privateness points.
Ivan is not keen to surrender – and has been in contact with a number of non-profits who’re serving to him determine the subsequent steps. “The Italians are deciding the fate of my family, my brothers, and won’t even let me see them,” he mentioned.
Noris mentioned she nonetheless misses the children who’ve left her city in northern Italy, worrying usually about their security.
“We took two of them to the seaside for three days and they were so excited,” she mentioned.
“They didn’t need anything special, they didn’t need parties, they didn’t need money, they just needed – and still need – attention, the attention of people who look after them. That is the only thing that they needed.”
NCS’s Victoria Butenko, Daria Tarasova-Markina and Kosta Gak contributed reporting.