The fight for Margarita. A Russian politician is raising an abducted Ukrainian child. Her legal guardian has spent four years trying to bring her home.
Darina Repina is the legal guardian of two biological sisters. One of the girls, Anya, has lived with her for over six years. The other, Margarita, was separated from her by Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
When Margarita was less than a year old, she was abducted by Inna Varlamova, the soon-to-be wife of Russian politician Sergey Mironov, and Yana Lantratova, then a Russian lawmaker and now Vladimir Putin’s human rights commissioner. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta Europe, Repina spoke about how she brought the two sisters into her family, how the war tore her apart from her youngest daughter, and why she continues to fight for Margarita’s return.
“Hello, Margarita. We're waiting for you. We're so glad the moment has come when you're reading these words … We hope so much that this moment will come soon. We will never let you go.”
Meanwhile, soldiers were looking for the little ones, and rumors spread through the city that they intended to take them to Russia.
By phone, Darina arranged for volunteers to bring dairy products from a local factory and meat and bread from a store called Ferma. Other local business owners supplied food, wet wipes, diapers, toilet paper, water, and more.
The children were kept in hiding for over a month. During that time, 10 of them were collected by relatives. In late March, the director and several staff members were fired for refusing to cooperate with the occupying authorities. A pediatrician, Tatyana Zavalskaya, was appointed to run the facility in their place. Shortly afterward, soldiers arrived at the basement and ordered the children to be returned to the orphanage building.
“No gold toilet, no pot of black caviar can replace a sister,” Darina says. “My mother is gone. But I have my children, my aunt and her husband, my brother — that’s what I have left in this world. Russia has taken my business, my homes, and my child. Margarita is part of our family, and by now the Russians know that perfectly well.”