We can unearth the mass graves left in Ukraine by retreating Russian troops. We can talk to the Ukrainian survivors of rape and torture, the mothers of fallen soldiers and the millions who live in constant fear of Russian bombing and terror. But we can’t contact the Ukrainian women and children whom the invaders have abducted and taken far into the interior of Russia.
They are the war’s invisible victims — and will remain so even after a truce, whenever it comes.
As of this summer, the Russians had forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainians — mainly women — from the Ukrainian territories they occupied, including some 260,000 children. Those numbers have grown since then. Just during the Russian retreat from Kherson, for example, the attackers moved perhaps another 60,000 Ukrainians in less than a week. With their bloodcurdling Orwellian euphemisms, the Russians boast that millions of Ukrainians have "found shelter” or "been adopted” in Russia.