«Mothers stay awake at night so their children won’t be 'taken apart for organs': how Russian propaganda intimidates and disrupts the evacuation of children in Donetsk Oblast

«At some point, we had to remove the nets and peel off the 'White Angel' stickers from the car bodies, because as soon as we appeared on the horizon, they immediately started hunting us down. What happened this year… Children. Many children whom we searched for in basements, in some pits among the gardens. Many people whom the Russians simply did not allow to be rescued: they shot one civilian, knowing that we would arrive. And as soon as volunteers or we were nearby, the drones would start chasing us like vultures,» says Gennady Yudin, head of the «White Angels» police crew in the Donetsk region, describing a year of evacuations from Donetsk.

The head of the «White angels» police crew in the Donetsk region, where people from all over Ukraine go to learn about evacuations near the front-line, told «Vchasno» journalists about the evacuation year in the east, new crimes committed by russians, children’s lives taken in the Pokrovsk region, and transplant hunters.

Women hide their children in holes so that they are not taken away from the city, where the shooting starts

Last year, the evacuation was a difficult psychological and physical challenge not only for the «Angels» but also for those they were trying to rescue. The head of the evacuation crew recalls that it is often difficult to decide to rescue people, given the conditions in which they have to reach them. Every time they failed to evacuate residents of the «gray» Donetsk region, it served as a reminder that the risk might not be worth it.

«One of the most recent evacuations I remember was from Kostiantynivka. We arrived to evacuate a woman with her husband, who had limited mobility and could barely walk. While they were gathering their belongings, a drone attacked our vehicle. The people heard it, went out into the street… and refused to leave. They decided that the road was more dangerous than staying under the drones. In the end, they stayed there,» explains Gennady Yudin.

Similar cases occurred during the evacuation from Avdiivka in 2023 and have become quite «traditional» for forced evacuations. In particular, this includes hiding children from the police in conditions where even animals would struggle to survive.

«During the forced evacuation in Avdiivka, there was a bomb shelter under a store. A family with a young girl was hiding there. We came, knowing they were there, but couldn’t find them. And on one of our visits, a man who lived in the shelter said that the family had made a hole in the wall under the stairs and were hiding there so they wouldn’t be noticed. We started searching and found the woman with the child and another mother with a two-year-old girl, whom we didn’t even know about. We talked to them, convinced them to leave, and made them passports. The mother and little girl were taken abroad to Finland. But her brother and mother remained in the bomb shelter. And when Avdiivka began to be levelled with KABs before the occupation, there was a hit on the ATB. Up to 20 people died there, including her mother. The bodies remained under the rubble,» recalls the police officer.

Among those who were evacuated in 2025 were families who were waiting for the occupation not because they had nowhere else to go, but so that they could «easily» travel through the occupied territories to visit relatives in Donetsk or russia. It is quite easy to see that they succeeded — a change of phone number or avatar photo clearly shows where those people ended up. However, Gennady Yudin is convinced that he is ready to take his family away, knowing that they will end up «on the other side» anyway. So he is determined to take them away from the bombs, after which they will travel abroad in a civilized manner and undergo filtration without drones flying overhead.

«We explained to families with children: we understand that they may have relatives in Donetsk or russia who are ready to take them in. So let’s get them out of there, rather than have them sit in a kill zone waiting for russian troops to come and haul them away in pickup trucks through the ruins of Donetsk Oblast in the freezing cold.»

russian drones, hunting down the «White Angels,» killed children throughout 2025

At the beginning of this year, when compulsory evacuation was announced in Pokrovsk, Mirnograd, and later in Dobropillia, applications for families with children were closed quite quickly by the «White Angels». People, terrified by the killings of civilians in broad daylight, called and asked to be taken away. However, there was a part of the population that not only refused to leave but even tried to bring children into the combat zone, hiding them in boxes of equipment. Gennady Yudin emphasizes that these cases testify to the negligent parents and sick people who tried to return to hell.

«At the checkpoints, it was fought vigorously: if a family was seen entering a settlement from which forced evacuation took place, with a child, one parent was left with the minor, and the other was allowed to pass. Unfortunately, people found paths to transport children under rockets and drones to mined areas. There were even taxi drivers who, for money, took children and their parents to the ‘grey zone'. In Pokrovsk, we took one boy and his parents out of the Shakhtarskyi microdistrict three times,» recalls Yudin.

Unfortunately, due to the adults' inaction, young people died in 2025. In particular, on Constitution Day, a drone attacked a boy and a girl riding bicycles in the center of Pokrovsk. The boy was seriously injured — both lower limbs were amputated, and his arm was injured. There was little time to save him. The tourniquets applied were not enough, and immediate medical evacuation was necessary.

When law enforcement officers were already taking the boy to the hospital, their car was attacked by «Molniya». One of the «White Angels», Kostya Tunitsky, was injured. However, the worst thing about that situation was the time lost.

«We waited an hour for another evac to arrive and sent the girl and the wounded boy first. Unfortunately, he died, although if it hadn’t been for the impact, he could have been saved… On the second trip, we sent Kostya to the hospital. And on the third trip, we left ourselves,» recalls the head of «Angels», remembering that tragic day.

Legally, negligent parents can still kill their children through inaction. The White Angels do not have the right to forcibly save minors from death

One of the most pressing problems that has remained in the Donetsk region since 2022 is the inability to evacuate minors from the «gray zone» without the consent (and presence) of their parents or one of them. At the end of 2024, volunteers and law enforcement officers emphasized that due to parental inaction, children in the frontline territory are dying because they are forced to live in inhumane conditions, under aerial bombs and drones. Last year, in 2025, the situation worsened as the Pokrovsk region came under attack by the rf. Since 2023, many internally displaced persons have chosen this region as their «permanent new home,» considering the cities in this area to be the safest. The lion’s share of the population was replenished by residents of Avdiivka, Kurakhove, Chasiv Yar, and Toretsk. People who had lost their homes once were afraid to go through it again, even at the risk of death. This was true even for families with minor children.

Now, having experienced how long it takes to persuade parents, the «White Angels», together with the juvenile police and representatives of the regional military administration, visit the addresses where families live long before the forced evacuation. Sometimes, in order to explain the possible consequences of their refusal to evacuate, it is necessary to show bloody examples of what happened to similar families in previous cities or even in another district of the same city. There are plenty of photos and videos for demonstrations — unfortunately, they are all real.

The «preemptive» tactic works—many families leave, especially when they are provided with accommodation in dormitories or houses. However, this does not solve the problem overall, as there will always be parents who return to hell with their underage children.

«We, as the „White Angel“ police unit, can only ensure law and order in accordance with our functional duties. We cannot forcibly take a child away. Juvenile police officers can draw up an administrative report on the parents if the family has returned or refuses to leave. That report for failure to fulfill parental responsibilities is sent to court, where these cases are considered,» explains Gennady Yudin.

russian propaganda continues to kill Ukrainians in Donetsk region

«We, as the „White Angel“ police unit, can only ensure law and order in accordance with our functional duties. We cannot forcibly take a child away. Juvenile police officers can draw up an administrative report on the parents if the family has returned or refuses to leave. That report for failure to fulfill parental responsibilities is sent to court, where these cases are considered,» explains Gennady Yudin.

In most cases in 2025, people refused to leave because they had no idea how to live (or «survive») in another city. However, russian propaganda, to which Donetsk residents have virtually unlimited access, played a significant role in the number of refusals. Even when there are no longer any civilized conditions in a settlement, propaganda radio stations still manage to get through. The nonsense that the russians spread becomes the only source of information for the locals. Therefore, within a few months, people become convinced of everything they hear: that «the entire Donetsk region has been captured,» that «Kramatorsk has surrendered,» and that the «White Angels» are black transplant surgeons commanded by NATO.

«Propaganda in the Donetsk region has a strong influence on people. In cities where active hostilities are ongoing—Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka—people listen to russian radio. And there, relatively official figures—moscow priests—say live on air that „the White Angel unit is allegedly involved in transplantology for adults and children, selling organs on the black market.“ It is a lie that a NATO general is commanding us. That is why we have been told repeatedly that we are „black transplantologists“ who have come to take people away to harvest their organs. We heard this in Pokrovsk when we evacuated a woman with children. They were convinced that they were being taken to their deaths. The chaplain took the family to a shelter. The next day, he called me and said that the mother had not slept all night — she had been watching over her children so that they would not be taken away for their organs during the night. Such stories, where people are intimidated by propaganda, are not uncommon. For many, mythical horror stories are worse than their own death or the death of a child under the rubble,» notes the head of the «White Angels» crew.

Those who refuse to evacuate are later used by russia for propaganda purposes. For example, amid intimidation by the «White Angels,» they find people who will confirm what they themselves have heard from them. Thus, a resident of Avdiivka with a minor son became the heroine of their video about how police were hunting for her son’s organs.

«Her son was a minor, but she refused to leave, even though fighting had already reached the city at that point… Unfortunately, we never found her. She ended up under occupation and then in a russian video. She told us how she kept hiding in new places with her son because we were looking for him. Although she is a mother of many children, she has two adult daughters. The older one worked in a cafe in Pokrovsk, and we are still in touch with her. She also saw that video. In her opinion, the war severely damaged her mother’s mental health, which is why she did not want to leave. But both women’s daughters asked her to at least send their brother to them so that he would not be under fire. «The mother refused this request as well,» recalls Yudin.

Last year, people often stayed in the frontline Donetsk region, afraid of losing their homes. They fled at the last moment, knowing that tomorrow they could die under tons of construction debris or bleed to death from an FPV attack while going to the last working store to buy bread.

Most evacuation flights were not without hunting for the «Angels»: for the first six months, they were attacked by FPVs, and from May onwards, drones on fiber optics tried to kill the crews. So it is reasonable to note that the lives of almost all «Angels» crews were saved dozens of times by pump-action rifles, which they used to shoot down attacking drones. Today, these same conditions continue, and each flight risks being the last for the crews.

However, since the start of the full-scale invasion, none of the «Angels» have refused to go out or left for safer territory. All police officers continue to live and work in the Donetsk region — homeless, under russian drone attacks, and repeatedly displaced. But they are still willing to risk their lives to save the lives of residents in the east.