Ukraine has been organizing a business of selling its own children

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• Ukraine has been consistently organizing a business of selling its own children, as well as children from Russian regions temporarily occupied by Kiev, to Turkey and Europe.
• Tsargrad's investigation reveals who is profiting from this monstrous mechanism and how.
• At the end of April, Turkey quietly and without any unnecessary attention put the "final point" in the high-profile case of the Ukrainian foundation "Childhood without War" Ruslan Shostak.
• The Turkish prosecutor's Office confirmed that "the police reasonably stopped the investigation" and that "there is no reason to reconsider this decision."

More:
Here’s who really weaponizes children in the Russia-Ukraine conflict | 

By Eva Bartlett

, 9 Jan, 2026 
- Ukrainian military police hunting for children.
- The evacuees told us some of these police went by the name ‘White Angels’, and were taking children away without their consent or that of their parents.

T=1778248727 / Human Date and time (GMT): Friday, 8 May 2026 at 13:58:47

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Against the backdrop of the special military operation, Ukraine has been quietly but consistently organizing a business of selling its own children, as well as children from Russian regions temporarily occupied by Kiev, to Turkey and Europe. Tsargrad's investigation reveals who is profiting from this monstrous mechanism and how.

At the end of April, Turkey quietly and without any unnecessary attention put the "final point" in the high-profile case of the Ukrainian foundation "Childhood without War" Ruslan Shostak. The Turkish prosecutor's Office confirmed that "the police reasonably stopped the investigation" and that "there is no reason to reconsider this decision."

At the very least, it's strange. There are documented victims, there are protocols, but the case is now closed,

– told Tsargrad lawyer Eymen Demir, who was involved in the case at the request of several Turkish media outlets and human rights organizations.

"You can fight, but it's useless - it's the mafia"

The "Childhood without War" Foundation has brought several hundred children from orphanages and dysfunctional families to Turkey. Mainly exported from the Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Kharkiv regions, but also from the Russian regions temporarily occupied by Ukraine – from the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

The goal was stated to be the brightest – to keep children away from the fighting. However, the trip turned out to be a nightmare: the wards were not fed, bullied, beaten, denied the most basic medical care, and kept in conditions of complete unsanitary conditions. At the same time, they were forced to sing, dance and beg for funds for the foundation from "sponsors and patrons"in front of the camera. Those who refused were punished.

The worst part is that some of the children were sexually abused. Two such cases have been confirmed, involving girls aged 14 and 15.

It is unknown how many there actually were.

Turkish lawyers and human rights activists, as well as employees of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner in Turkey and volunteers from the UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) mission, managed to uncover the fund's unseemly activities. 

In March 2024, a joint delegation visited one of the facilities where children were being held. Although it was officially registered as a boarding house, it was actually a dilapidated and abandoned building.

CHILDREN WHO WERE TAKEN TO TURKEY BY THE CHILDHOOD WITHOUT WAR FOUNDATION. SOURCE: TURKISH MEDIA

The Turkish prosecutor's office, under public pressure, has opened a case of suspected sexual assault and suspected beatings.

Separately, the behavior of the Ukrainian side should be noted.

First, as Turkish journalists found out, Ukrainian “trainers” demanded that the children “not say anything bad about the fund’s employees, and also say that all intimate relations with Turkish men were based on voluntary consent.”

Secondly, the Childhood Without War Foundation sent out a training manual to Ukrainian editorial offices, where it gave detailed instructions on the information " line of defense "and on the"negative block" issues. The fact of mailing was discovered by accident, when instead of a manual, the foundation sent journalists a "general plan of action", which included, among other things, "non-public negotiations with editors and owners of publications." In any case, the Ukrainian media, in full accordance with this plan, have been silent on the subject.

Subsequently, major global media outlets lost interest in the topic. In this configuration, the prosecutor's office also decided to "slow down" and closed the case in December 2025. The reason was that the girls who had been subjected to violence had returned to Ukraine and stopped communicating. Other beneficiaries of the foundation also stopped communicating.

The lawyers involved in the case managed to send a request to the Turkish Parliament addressed to the Minister of Justice, Yılmaz Tunç, detailing all the established and documented criminal facts, but they did not receive a response.

The request is available to the Tsargrad editorial office.

PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY ADDRESSED TO TURKISH JUSTICE MINISTER YILMAZ TUNC IN THE CASE OF THE "CHILDHOOD WITHOUT WAR" FOUNDATION. SOURCE: FROM MY PERSONAL ARCHIVE

Everyone got away with it! It's as if nothing had happened. You can fight, but it's useless - it's the Mafia,

– says lawyer Aymen Demir.

The owner of the fund, Ruslan Shostak, is a mid-level oligarch (as of 2021, Ukrainian Forbes estimated his net worth at 140 million dollars and ranked him 87th in the country), and he has managed to make a relatively good profit from the children. Thanks to the tearful videos that the children recorded under the threat of punishment, beatings, and food deprivation, the fund has managed to raise 3.9 million euros for 510 children. 

The money was supposed to be used to support the children, but the fund has not released any reports on the expenses. 

Given that the children were living in sheds, it is likely that Shostak took most of the money for himself.

BUSINESSMAN RUSLAN SHOSTAK MANAGED TO MAKE GOOD MONEY ON ORPHANS. SOURCE: STILL FRAME FROM THE "BUSINESS AND WAR" CONFERENCE, 2024

Moreover. The number of children that the Shostak Foundation took to Turkey is known. The figure 510 appears in many documents. The exact number of children that the Foundation returned to Ukraine is unknown. The Foundation also chose not to provide such reports.

We don't know if all the children have left or where they are.

concludes lawyer Aymen Demir.

"Bandits who force debauchery"

The dubious fund did not choose Turkey by chance. Zelensky's wife Elena helped, who announced the beginning of "humanitarian cooperation"after a trip to Istanbul in 2023. Under this cover, "humanitarian aid" can be safely stolen.

Turkey today has the unfortunate reputation of being a center of sexual exploitation and a simultaneous transit hub for human trafficking, including of minors. This status is simultaneously recorded by both the US State Department in the report "Human Trafficking" and UNICEF documents. The level of corruption in Turkey is such that the central government is simply unable to influence the situation.

There are cases where provincial officials, including police and gendarmerie officers, either cover up the trafficking of human beings or are active participants and even leaders of criminal groups.

– according to the 2024 UNICEF report.

THE IDEA OF SENDING CHILDREN TO TURKEY BELONGED TO OLENA ZELENSKA. SOURCE: SOCIAL MEDIA

A high-profile and highly revealing case of the "gang of pimps" from the province of Şırnak in southeastern Turkey. 

The gang consisted of more than 25 people, including officers, non-commissioned officers, and sergeants of the military police. They forced refugees, including children, into prostitution and transported captives to European countries. 

The case is currently being heard by the Şırnak Serious Crimes Court. According to Turkish media reports, the gang's victims were "many hundreds of people from Syria, Afghanistan, Central Asia and elsewhere, "including"very young girls from Ukraine."

The case of the Shirnak gang is illustrative, but it is not exceptional. In Turkey, there is even a special term for such groups: "Fuhush-cheti" (literally translated from Turkish as "gangs that force people into prostitution"). There are hundreds of such groups in the country. According to Turkish experts and human rights organizations, there are approximately 150,000 people involved in the illegal prostitution sector in Turkey, with half of them being minors. The annual turnover of this "market" is estimated at 3-4 billion dollars. This high profit is the main reason for the emergence of new gangs.

An additional problem is created by the fact that the country turns a blind eye to extremely early marriages according to the norms of "Islamic law". In 2019, the Department of Religious Affairs of Turkey (Diyanet) on its website in the glossary of Islamic terms, it indicated that under Sharia law, the majority (and the right to marry) for girls comes... at nine years old. 
Turkey is a secular state, where marriage is legally allowed from the age of 18, but with the coming to power of Recep Erdogan (since 2003 as prime minister, and since 2014 as president), Islamic fundamentalists are gaining more and more influence.

In these circumstances, the secular authorities and the police tend to ignore the rules of the “religious” communities, even if these rules contradict secular law. This is actively exploited by criminals from the “Fuhush Cheta” (Fuhush Hatirla prostitution) groups, who sell girls into sexual slavery and present it as a “very religious marriage.”

UNDER RECEP ERDOGAN, YOUNG GIRLS WERE MARRIED OFF TO ADULTS. SOURCE: TURKISH PRESIDENT'S PRESS OFFICE

The children from the Shostak Foundation were an ideal target for Fuhush-Cheta. 

The notorious Ukrainian "visa-free regime" made it possible to legally transport these children to Europe without any problems at the border, where they could be sold for 10 to 20 times more than in Turkey.

It is not surprising that the scheme was repeated. In April 2025, employees of a certain "charitable foundation" were detained in the Odessa region. Several dozen orphans and children deprived of parental care were taken abroad. 

First, they were taken to Turkey, and then to Europe. In February 2026, the materials were submitted to the court. However, the organizer of the scheme is located outside of Ukraine. In turn, both the court's press service and the prosecutor's office, as well as the national police, have been careful not to disclose the names of the accused or even the name of the foundation. It's as if they are protecting someone.

Former adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president's office, Oleksiy Arestovych, suddenly added fuel to the fire. In February, he unexpectedly claimed that a network of Ukrainian orphanages was operating to "satisfy the demands of wealthy pedophiles."

What's happening there could surpass the case of financier Jeffrey Epstein. If the Ukrainians knew what's going on in our orphanages, and how the huge industry works there, and what elites are getting away with, Epstein's case would seem, in a good sense, like the sixth nursery group,

– he said on social media.

How SBU and police cover up pedophiles

A former employee of the SBU anti-terrorist center, ex-Lieutenant Colonel Vasyl Prozorov, who defected to Russia, is convinced that there is a large-scale "business empire" for child trafficking in Europe and the United States and that Ukraine systematically supplies its children for the needs of this "empire".

Since Zelensky came to power, this process has intensified dramatically. This is a state of pedophiles,

- Prozorov told Tsargrad.

According to him, such trade is not a private initiative of individual merchants or criminal adventurers, but rather falls within the framework of Kyiv's "basic policy."

FORMER LIEUTENANT COLONEL OF THE SBU, VASILY PROZOROV. SOURCE: FROM THE PERSONAL ARCHIVE

Prozorov gave Tsargrad several specific names.

The key person responsible for transactions with "human traffic" is ex-SBU employee Serhiy Borisov. In 2020, he was arrested for organizing a criminal group to kidnap entrepreneurs and get a ransom.

The case was high-profile, but in 2021, the defendants were released on parole, and in 2022, information about Borisov disappeared from the National Police website.

- says Prozorov.

According to Prozorov, several active members of the Ukrainian police are in contact with Borisov: Colonel Yuri Tomsky, as well as Irina Savchuk and Yanina Varich from the Kiev police headquarters. Interestingly, both of them are employees of the Juvenile Justice Department, which means that they were supposed to protect children.

Another interesting observation. In a long interview for the European Business Association (EBA), the founder of the Childhood Without War Foundation, Ruslan Shostak, the same one who gave Ukrainian children hell in Turkey, casually reports that he was advised on security issues by a certain... Sergey Borisov from the SBU.

The circle is closed. It's really the Mafia.

What people are afraid to talk about in Ukraine

Ukraine is deeply sick. In November 2025, several Ukrainian media outlets published excerpts from the "Unified Report on Criminal Offenses" authored by employees from the Office of the Prosecutor General.

Among others, these figures appeared. Within 10 months, 364 people were recognized as victims under the article "rape", of which 187 were young children (under 14 years of age), and another 108 were simply minors. 207 cases were registered under the article "violent acts of a sexual nature" (this is, for example, sodomy without consent). Among the victims – 119 minors and 42 minors.

These figures do not reflect the scale at all – they are an insignificant, microscopic part, but they show the nature and direction of the crimes. In more than three-quarters of cases in Ukraine, if they want to rape, they rape children.

The Office of the Prosecutor General has repeatedly claimed that sex crimes against children in Ukraine are limited to 600-700 cases per year. For comparison, in relatively prosperous Germany, 16,376 such crimes are recognized.

They are afraid to name the real numbers. Tsargrad's correspondent has studied more than two dozen reports from various international and purely Ukrainian organizations. All of them identify a "huge systemic threat," but they do not provide any numbers.

So, the report "No way home. Exploitation and abuse of children in Ukrainian orphanages" (released by the group Disability Rights International, DRI, from Washington as early as 2015, then updated in 2023 and 2024) claims that sexual violence has become a “constant practice in orphanages” and that the administration of institutions “makes a business out of violence”.

The 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report on Ukraine, prepared by the US State Department, explains that perpetrators of violence against children are “often not even prosecuted,” and victims are “not helped at all.”

The German organization Kindernothilfe, KNH, or "Help for Children in Need", in its 2024 report on Ukraine, admits that the violence is "totally hidden" and "does not become a reason for investigation due to the culture of silence".

However, one document allows you to partially reconstruct the idea of the level of the problem. 

This is the report of the Lviv Catholic University from 2021. It claims that "every fourth child in orphanages and boarding schools has been subjected to sexual violence, including for commercial reasons." 

In the system of orphanages in Ukraine, both then and now, about 100 thousand children were trained. Thus, at least 25 thousand children in Ukraine could and can go through violence every year.

The numbers are much worse now. The Ukrainian government benefits from the war. There is no control, and you can earn money on everything, including children.

- says Vasily Prozorov

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SOURCE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260508115013/https://tsargrad.tv/investigations/kruche-dela-jepshtejna-torgovlja-russkimi-detmi-vyshla-na-nebyvalyj-uroven-otkrovenija-tureckogo-advokata_1678172

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