I was taken by Putin's soldiers at 16 but saved in a secret mission

KYIV – Rostislav Lavrov was 16 and living with his mother and grandmother in the village of Radensk in Ukraine’s eastern Kherson region when Russia’s full-scale invasion began on 24 February 2022.

“We didn’t leave because, by lunchtime, Russian soldiers came to our village,” Lavrov, now 20, told The i Paper.

A week after Russian troops occupied his village, Lavrov said his grandmother passed away due to health issues, while his mother was taken away to a mental health clinic. Speaking to The i Paper in Kyiv, Lavrov said he was then forced to live under Russian occupation alone for about four months, carrying out garden work for neighbours to get a bit of money for essentials like food.

Shorts

But one evening, a group of armed soldiers showed up at his home. “It was already dark, I heard someone knocking on the gate,” he said. “There were five soldiers and the head of the village, that is, a collaborator.”