The presidential initiative Bring Kids Back UA said on Monday that, over the past week, 23 children and teenagers were brought from Russian-occupied territory onto Ukrainian-controlled land. The Kyiv Independent carried the statement. This is not a tally of all children still under Russian control and not an end to the war.

Those who returned are receiving psychological support and help restoring Ukrainian papers, the initiative writes. Ukrainska Pravda confirms the same 23 people and the same frame: pressure, threats, fear, in the programme's account, not in a court file published today.

Among them, the statement carried by both newsrooms says, is Stefan, nine, put through military drills at a school under occupation: grenades and firearms. Pravda adds that after he drew a blue-and-yellow flag, the FSB summoned his mother to the school. That is the initiative's account, not a verdict.

Polina, 13, survived a combat drone strike near her home and then feared going outside, the same statement says. Russian soldiers raided the house and destroyed aerials to cut information, it adds. Pravda also names Mariana, 20, checked for papers and interrogated. A group of 23 is not a national statistic.

The Bring Kids Back site writes that the 23 come from occupied Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Luhansk, including three orphans, with help from Save Ukraine. The Kyiv Independent does not give the regions in its lead. The stock figures stay separate: in September the Justice Ministry confirmed 20,610 cases of deportation and forced transfer. The ombudsman and the presidential commissioner give much higher estimates. They do not add up into one number.

The 2023 ICC warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova are old. Today's announcement is about 23 returns in a week. Anyone writing that all the children have been freed is writing past the statement.

Image: Svitlana 743, Ukrainian flags, National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, Kyiv, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; not portraits of children.

Sources consulted: Ukraine brings home 23 children from Russian occupation - The Kyiv Independent; Twenty-three Ukrainian children rescued from Russian occupation - Ukrainska Pravda.