Russians set to take nearly 2,000 children from occupied territories - Melitopol mayor

The exiled Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, announced this on the air of the national telethon, Ukrinform reports.

"Now the occupiers are trying to gather approximately 1,500-2,000 children from the temporarily occupied territory and, under the guise of New Year's holidays, take them, as they claim, to the New Year's show in Moscow. But we well remember September, when the ruscists gathered children from Enerhodar, Kamianka-Dniprovska, claiming they were taking them for a week, but returned them in two months," he said.

Fedorov urged all parents who remain in the occupied areas not to allow the invaders to take their children to Russia.

As reported earlier, the Russian forces are deporting children en masse from the temporarily occupied Luhansk region to Chechnya, supposedly for "patriotic education."