‘It’s not going to be some miraculous recovery’: film charts healing of Ukrainian children rescued from Russia; The Guardian, December 11, 2025

Jennifer Rankin , The Guardian ; ‘It’s not going to be some miraculous recovery’: film charts healing of Ukrainian children rescued from Russia

"Between therapy sessions, the children walk golden retrievers, ride ponies in the verdant forest and swim in the Baltic Sea. Therapists hope the natural respite will soothe their souls and help undo some of the trauma of their separation in Russian custody.

The families in this film are unusual: only a minority of Ukraine’s stolen children have been reunited with their parents.

Ukraine’s government has identified 19,546 children who have been unlawfully deported or forcibly transferred to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The government-backed Bring Kids Back initiative estimates 1,898 have returned from deportation, forced transfers and occupied Ukraine.

But researchers say the true scale of the removals is unclear as Russian authorities erase records and falsify identities. The international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

In September, Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of a double crime against Ukraine’s children: “Russia first abducted them and deported them, and now it tries to steal everything they have inside – their culture, their character, their bond with family and their identity,” he said.

The documentary, After the Rain, does not tell this political story. The British director Sarah McCarthy, who has Ukrainian heritage, said she wanted to “introduce as many people as I could to these children as children, not as a statistic, not as a political story, just as kids with all their mischief and fun and longing”."