Abducted Ukrainian Children 'Treated Like Animals': 'Lived With Cockroaches & Rats' Before Being Rescued From Russia

Several young children abducted from Ukraine and taken to Russia were allegedly “treated like animals” before being rescued from their captors, RadarOnline.com has learned.

In a sudden development that comes shortly after it was revealed at least 20,000 Ukrainian kids were abducted from their families since Vladimir Putin first invaded Ukraine 14 months ago, 31 of those abducted were recently rescued and reunited with their loved ones.

Many of the kids revealed they were “treated like animals” and forced to live in “filthy conditions” as they underwent reeducation programs forced upon them by the Russian authorities.

“We were treated like animals,” one of the children revealed during a press conference held on Friday, according to Daily Star. “We were closed in a separate building.”

“There were kids who changed their locations five times in five months, some children say that they were living with rats and cockroaches,” added a Ukrainian official investigating the children’s abductions.

More shocking are reports that there was widespread sexual abuse taking place in the Russian camps where the abducted Ukrainian children were being kept.

“He told me camp workers were forcing 13-year-old Ukrainian girls to have sex with them,” a mother of one of the young victims said following her son’s return last week.

“It was heartbreaking to look at children left behind who were crying behind the fence,” she added regarding the thousands of other abducted Ukrainian children who have not yet been rescued.

As RadarOnline.com reported, many of the children were abducted after their families fled to Russia to escape the brutal and bloody war taking place in Ukraine, while other children were taken during purported “school trips” into Russian-occupied Crimea.

“I was afraid,” one Ukrainian mother said regarding her 11-year-old daughter. “It’s a war and I told her it might not be so easy to get you back. But her friends were going and she really wanted to go.”

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But when the parents attempted to retrieve their children, they found that Russia had sent them to Russian “re-education camps.”

These startling developments happened just weeks after the International Criminal Court issued an international warrant for Putin’s arrest in connection to the unlawful deportation of children from war-torn Ukraine to Russia.