“I dreamed of starting my adult life in free Ukraine”. 17-year-old boy brought back from temporarily occupied territory

17-year-old Mykhailo, who lived in the temporarily occupied territory, was brought back to Ukraine. It took about a month to rescue him. Ukraine's Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories reported that Mykhailo is currently in the city of Khmelnytskyi.

His sister also lives there.  "His dream came true because he wanted to start his adult life in a free Ukraine," the Ministry of Reintegration says.

Anton Bilai, the headmaster of the Mariupol Vocational Construction College, asked the ministry to help him get Mykhailo out of the temporarily occupied territory. Anton Bilai informed them of Mykhailo's whereabouts. 

"Anton Bilai already has a similar experience. Earlier, he managed to bring two orphaned college students to the government-controlled territory of free Ukraine. Despite the danger to himself, he personally followed them to the temporarily occupied city of Donetsk", the ministry says.

Mykhailo's homecoming became possible thanks to the implementation of the Way Home project, according to the Ministry of Reintegration. It aims to search for and bring back children from the Russian Federation and the temporarily occupied territories, as well as to reunite families whose children have been left without parents during the occupation. Earlier, Bohdan Yermokhin, who was deported from Mariupol to Russia, was brought back to Ukraine.

He was illegally served with a call-up notice in Russia.

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