“They told me, ‘It’s going to be very hard, and the paperwork is awful.’ I said I didn’t care,” Lyudmila said.While Ukrainians face daunting logistical barriers to recover children taken to Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree last May making it quick and easy for Russians to adopt Ukrainian children.“Russia changed its adoption law to give these children to Russian families as soon as possible,” said Alexandra Romantsova of the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv, which documents possible Russian war crimes and won the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.It is one of the ways that Russia is trying to destroy Ukrainian identity.” As war rages on in Ukraine, volunteer paramedics evacuate the injured Daria Herasymchuk, Ukraine’s top children’s rights official said last month that 10,764 Ukrainian children had been reported by relatives, family or friends to have been deported by Russia without their parents.At a news conference on Oct. 26, Lvova-Belova said that about 2,000 “unaccompanied children” from Ukraine were “evacuated” to Russia, mainly to orphanages and other groups homes, while “350 orphans from Donbas have already been placed in foster families in 16 regions of Russia, but a thousand more children are waiting for new parents.” Lvova-Belova did not respond to repeated requests for an interview."