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In Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, disabled people of all ages are among the most vulnerable.

The Oleshky Children’s Boarding School [in Ukraine] had a reputation for being one of the best of its kind in Ukraine. The state-funded school accepted orphans as well as children diagnosed with varying degrees of mental and physical disabilities. Many of the children fell into both categories, but the school was known for its attentive care and specialized treatments for all its students, regardless of their status.

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The school staff who stayed after Feb. 24 [in 2022, when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine had started] watched in fear as the Russian occupying forces began swiftly implementing administrative control over social institutions, primarily targeting the spheres of education, health care and social security.

Russian military officials, sometimes in plain clothing, other times in uniforms with automatic rifles, attempted several times to get the Oleshky school to “cooperate” with the occupying forces. Sometimes, they made surprise visits, offering donations of food in exchange for information, such as the whereabouts and headcounts of the children.

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“From the beginning of the occupation, there were constant rumors among employees that Ukraine was evacuating us. But all efforts failed at the planning stage,” said Vadym Reutsky, a teacher and sports coach at the school who stayed for the first months of the occupation. Everyone understood that it was only a matter of time before Russia would come to seize full control of the school, he said.

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The deportations were being orchestrated from the highest levels of the Russian government. Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, was in the region of Kherson’s left bank in October and November, where the occupying forces were nervously watching the rapid Ukrainian approach. On Nov. 11, the official Telegram channels of the occupying authorities wrote that Lvova-Belova, who has since been indicted by the International Criminal Court for the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children, instructed the remaining students at the Oleshky boarding school to move to Skadovsk, another occupied small city on the shores of the Black Sea.

After Lvova-Belova made a request to the Ministry of Health in Russia, “they promptly responded, providing 14 ambulances for the evacuation of the children from Oleshky,” a statement read, adding that local official Alla Barkhatnova, the acting Minister of Social Policy and Labor for Kherson Region, took part in the decision. That same day, 56 disabled children and adults were transported by ambulances to the Nadiia Rehabilitation Centre in Skadovsk.

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