Ukrainian hackers tracing children abducted by Russia

As many as 150,000 could have been taken during invasion

- ASKOLD KRUSHELNYCKY

In the three years of Putin's bloody war against Ukraine, one of the most shocking statistics to emerge is that as many as 150,000 children may have been abducted by Russia.

As the world’s attention turns to Donald Trump raging against Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House and hopes of peace talks evaporate, the loss of loved ones is still the daily reality for the Ukrainian people.

Among the missing are orphans whose parents have been killed in the conflict and then separated from their remaining relatives. Thousands of others were taken from orphanages that fell into Russian hands. Most of the children have been spirited away to unknown locations in Russia, often thousands of miles from their homes, where they are indoctrinated to despise Ukraine.

Attempts to retrieve the children by family members have, overwhelmingly, proved fruitless. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has labelled the deportations as a war crime and issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Maria Alekseyevna LvovaBelova, his “commissioner for children’s rights”, in March 2023.

But there are those trying to help rescue the children and return them to their homeland, including hacker groups using Ukraine’s technological expertise to do it.

The Independent has spoken to Maksym Dudchenko, the cofounder of one of the most active such groups, called Kiborg. Dudchenko, a 21-year-old student based in Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv, said that he and others who started Kiborg in the summer of 2022 were prompted by a desire to help trace the abducted children.