Russian troops kidnap teenage son of Zaporizhzhia District Administration

Kateryna Tyshchenko – Sunday, 17 April 2022, 18:34

Oleh Buriak, Head of the Zaporizhzhia District Administration of the Zaporizhzhia Region, said that his son was kidnapped at a Russian checkpoint in Vasylivka from an evacuation convoy that was heading from Melitopol to Zaporizhzhia.

Source: Oleh Buriak in a commentary for Ukrinform

According to Buriak: "This happened at 11:22 on 8 April, at the checkpoint in Vasylivka. My 16-year-old son was in a car with two women he knew and their three kids. They were all heading for Zaporizhzhia. The convoy of cars was stopped by Russian soldiers, who approached every car in order to check who was inside and where they were going. They saw my son’s phone and dragged him out of the car."

Details: Buriak said that the car was held at the checkpoint for three hours before letting everyone, other than the 16-year-old boy, Vlad, go. Buriak’s acquaintances who were in the car told him they begged the Russian soldiers to let the boy go.

"They [the Russian troops] have tablets which they used to find out that I was the boy’s father. During all this time [since the day of the kidnapping and until now], we have been trying to solve this by ourselves, but we didn’t manage to," Head of the District Administration said.