Dispatches on the ‘Hunt for Ukraine’s stolen children’

The Channel 4 investigative series delves into another social issue.

Dispatches follows a team of investigators as they search for evidence to prosecute Russian President Putin for the deportation and brainwashing of thousands of Ukrainian children.

The production crew has exclusive access to the team as they travel the dangerous borderlands of Ukraine, speaking to newly rescued children and trying to trace others who’ve disappeared from orphanages and schools during the Russian occupation.

Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, tells the programme, ‘If this was your child, you’d go anywhere to get them back, even to hell. We need the help of the whole world.’

The film talks to a 15-year-old who was abducted by soldiers from his school in occupied Kupyansk and taken to a correctional boarding school in Russia where he was forced to sing patriotic songs and wear a Russian uniform. It also tells the story of sisters Anastasia and Vlada, who were taken to a camp in Russian-controlled Crimea where they were kept for six months. Both children were put up for adoption despite having a family in Ukraine. One of them escaped; the other has been adopted by a Russian family.

DISPATCHES: The Hunt for Ukraine’s stolen children, Monday November 13th at 11.05pm on Channel 4