October 5, 2025
I was kidnapped by Russia at 16 — like so many Ukrainian kids
Valeriia Sydorova was 16 years old and living “like any other teenager” when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Sydorova’s mother had died in 2019 and, with her father working away in another region of Ukraine, she lived with her grandparents in Nova Kakhovka, in the Kherson region in the country’s south. She enjoyed gymnastics and dancing and was hoping, after school, to move to the capital, Kyiv, to study nursing. She recalls the confusion when explosions first shook her city, followed by tanks rolling through the streets with “Z” marked on the sides.
“We did not know what troops they were. Were these enemies or our guys?” she says. When the troops raised the Russian flag over the city hall and local hydroelectric power plant, the confusion ended. Anxious and terrified, for ten days Sydorova refused to eat or brush her hair. She jumped, startled, at every new explosion and was struggling emotionally. “There was no feeling of safety, just ongoing fear,” she says. Shops quickly ran empty of supplies. “And food became the priority — survival and food.”