Ukrainian → English transcript

They keep asking about their father, whom they haven't seen in over a month.

Seven-year-old Stanislav and Oleksandr are Volodymyr Strakhov's twins.

His sister Oksana says they are now living with her.

Since their father was mobilized at a checkpoint and they themselves were left on the roadside.

He then drove here with the children. He had moved; they were on the road for one and a half days.

And he simply didn't make it. He and the children were removed from the checkpoint.

And the children were just dropped off on the street.

He didn't manage to call. It was at 11 p.m. They took him. I took the children.

Oksana says their mother left the family when Stas and Sasha were two years old.

So Volodymyr raised the children on his own. He lived with them for a year under occupation in the Polohy district of the oblast.

But when Russian forces began pressuring the man to collaborate, he was forced to leave the country with the twins.

On the way to Ukraine, Volodymyr and Oksana discussed how to arrange the children's paperwork.

They even found a lawyer for that. But the man never managed to do it.

At first they said, 'We'll check your documents and let you go in the morning.' And that was it. No one released him after that.

He didn't make contact for three days. The employees of the Berdyansk RTsK, the ones who detained him.

One of them was speaking with someone: 'Give him a summons to process his documents.'

No—let him go fight, but what about the children? Two weeks in the hospital, then to an orphanage.

Now Volodymyr is already undergoing basic general military training. And Oksana has arranged temporary guardianship of the children.

Despite everything, even in these circumstances, the rights of minors must be the priority.

If this was a routine document check and the person was not wanted, representatives of ТЦК та СП could have issued a summons,

so that the person could appear the next day and, accordingly, fulfill all obligations.

First and foremost, the rights and interests of children. And in this case both law enforcement agencies and representatives of ТЦК та СП

should have first taken care of the children's welfare, and only then carried out their duties.