Vlad shared with Euronews what his life was like during those few months In Crimea. He says every morning, Ukrainian children were forced to sing the Russian national anthem. Vlad refused to fall in line.
“Many of us complained that we didn’t feel well because we didn’t want to do it and went to see the doctor instead,” Vlad recalled. At first, he said, those excuses could have worked out, but the discipline measures enforced by the Russians were getting tougher.
Vlad didn’t want to follow Moscow's rules, however. One day, he took the Russian banner off the camp's flagpole, an infraction he was punished for with five days in isolation. He was also threatened with being put into a psychiatric hospital.
“I took that flag off and put my underwear instead. They took me to the detention ward, which was a tiny room," Vlad said.
"They gave me little food twice a day, and nothing else. I was cut off in isolation."
"There was a window in the ward, but they said if they see communicating with anyone, they’d give me two more days in detention,” he remembered.
During his detention in isolation, he had suicidal thoughts, Vlad shared with Euronews. “I stayed there for five days, which is not that long maybe, but I had those thoughts, I thought of cutting my veins.”
Kuleba says these are not isolated cases. He told Euronews a story of a 13-year-old Ukrainian child whose mother died, and he was placed in a foster Russian family, where the father was a Russian soldier who got wounded in the war against Ukraine.
“His mother hated this boy, and she told him all the time how much she hated him. Imagine this boy at this young age living in such a family, going to a Russian school, where Russian teenagers hate him because he is a Ukrainian child," Kuleba said.
"He is pro-Ukrainian, where his teachers force him to constantly write letters of gratitude to the Russian military, who are killing him and, in fact, his family and friends in Ukraine.”
Save Ukraine managed to rescue and bring that teenager back, Kuleba said, adding, “if we hadn't saved him, it is not clear how much longer he could have resisted.”
By the end of 2022, Vlad was forcefully relocated to Lazurne, an occupied part of the Kherson region, to study at the naval academy, which the Russians forcefully took control of, destroyed, and then, as they say, "reopened" in the village after the liberation of Kherson.
Vlad said that the situation and atmosphere there were even worse, and he was pressured even more for his pro-Ukrainian sentiments.
Military education is an essential part of Russian indoctrination, said Kuleba, explaining that Moscow's ultimate intention is to eliminate any signs of Ukrainian identity and raise the next generation of Russian army to fight against Ukraine.
Many Ukrainian children who remained in the territories occupied by Russia since the first invasion of 2014 have already been "turned against Ukraine" and are fighting at the frontlines, Kuleba added.
In one of the most recent cases, Save Ukraine was organising the return of two orphaned boys who were called in and ended up at the front.
“These guys sent us a video from the trenches in Russian uniform, sitting with weapons in their hands. And one of them was even wounded last month,” Kuleba shared.
Once forced into accepting Russian citizenship, male Ukrainians, especially of young age, are almost immediately called in to serve in the Russian army and fight against Ukraine.
During the rare phone calls, Vlad complained to his mother about how hard his life was and repeatedly asked her to come and take him back.
Yet, bringing Ukrainian children back from deportation is a very complex and perilous mission.
Lazurne is around 100km from the city of Kherson, which used to be a quick hour-and-a-half drive south to the coast.
It took Tetyana over a week and thousands of kilometres of a dangerous journey from Ukraine through Poland, Belarus, Moscow and other parts of Russia, just to reach the occupied parts of her homeland.
To save her son, she left home with her other seven kids waiting. Tetyana's youngest daughter was only 11 months old when she went to Russia to rescue Vlad.
Tetiana's worst nightmare started when she arrived at the naval academy where her son was being held. She had to go through endless FSB checks and searches, which included body inspections and the confiscation of her documents.
Even that was not enough. Having spent two days being interrogated by FSB with a bag on her head and sleeping while locked away in a room in the basement — a two-by-two-metre space with one window with bars, a bench and a sleeping bag — Russian forces told her there was one more condition if she wanted to take her son back.
Tetyana was not released until she told the journalists on camera that they really liked Russia. Only then were the mother and son allowed to go.
Vlad says the Russian authorities still tried to convince them to remain there. "They were really trying hard to convince us to stay, really asked us not to leave."
Vlad returned to Ukraine on 29 May of last year after being held in Russia for eight months against his will.
He told Euronews it took him a couple of weeks to realise he was finally home. “When I arrived I was surprised to see all the people here being so happy, so positive," Vlad said.
"They are full of life and they are enjoying life. There (in Russia) I was locked in a cage.”