Families search in vain through a maze of foster homes and holiday camps
Kostya Ten (pictured above) was 13 years old when Russian troops entered his village of Kosatske on the banks of the Dnieper in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine. He was a tearaway kid from a complicated family. His mother died when he was tiny; his father, who was ethnically Korean, used to grow watermelons but was bedridden following a stroke. He had five older sisters and was treated as the baby of the family. At the age of 11, Kostya began running around with a gang of older boys who stole scrap metal. At first, he served as a lookout. Then they told him to nick some metal from his own home, promising to split the proceeds with him. Instead, they kept the money for themselves.
For two weeks after the full-scale invasion, Kostya and his family slept in the basement of their house. Then the Russian soldiers arrived and set up checkpoints. All the shops were looted and helicopters whirred overhead – they were “so cool”, said Kostya. He got talking to the occupying soldiers, many of whom were Ukrainians from Donetsk and Luhansk, eastern regions of Ukraine where Russia backed a secessionist takeover in 2014.