David accepted Russia’s offer of evacuation, hoping to then escape via Belarus – until the authorities took away his passport
On 4 April, when his city was blockaded on all sides, 16-year-old David boarded a bus from Mariupol to Russia. When asked, he said he told the Russian soldiers exactly what he thought they wanted to hear, “I nodded my head and said ‘Yes, yes, I want to go to Russia’,” said David. “There was no option of going to Ukraine. I thought I’d get [to Russia] and get out quickly via Belarus.”
But when David arrived at the bus’s destination, a city in western Russia, the local authorities sent him to a children’s home because he was under 18. They told him he would have to stay there until he came of age and took away his passport.
