An orphaned teenager who was taken to Russia early in the Ukraine war is back home with relatives

KYIV

An orphaned Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia last year during the war in his country returned home on his 18th birthday. The head of the Ukrainian president’s office confirmed that Bohdan Yermokhin arrived back in Ukraine on Sunday and thanked UNICEF and Qatari negotiators for facilitating the young man’s return. Yermokhin’s parents died two years ago. According to a Ukrainian lawyer, he lived with a cousin who was his legal guardian before he was taken from the port city of Mariupol and placed with a foster family near Moscow. The lawyer had stressed that Yermokhin needed to leave Russia before he turned 18 and became eligible for conscription into the army.