He was missing child on Ukraine’s own registry. Monitors say they’ve now found him wearing Russian “Z” and posing with its flag

A Ukrainian child who vanished under occupation has reappeared in a Russian uniform, fighting his own country. Oleksandr Mustiatse, who was a child in occupied Kherson Oblast after Russia's full-scale war, has joined the Russian army, Save Ukraine founder Mykola Kuleba reported.

A child from a missing persons registry was identified as an enemy soldier. Mustiatse, officially considered missing since the start of the Russian occupation and listed in the national "Children of War" registry, appeared on social media in a Russian military uniform bearing the "Z" symbol.

He also posed with a Russian flag and shared photos from positions where he fought against Ukraine, according to the Back to Ukraine team, a monitoring project tracking missing or displaced minors in Russia's war.

The pipeline starts long before the uniform

Kuleba said Oleksandr's story shows what happens to Ukrainian children left for years under occupation. Save Ukraine speaks almost daily with children and families who escaped, and their accounts describe a systematic process that begins well before military service, he said.

Children are drawn into militarized education in kindergartens and schools, encouraged to join the Yunarmiya youth army, taught to handle weapons, and told repeatedly that Ukraine is their enemy and Russian military service is their duty.

"When this becomes the only reality a child knows for years, propaganda stops being perceived as propaganda. It becomes identity," he said.

Ukraine has documented this pipeline: Russia takes occupied children, militarizes them, and turns some back toward the country they came from.

The identification, and its uncertainty

The tracing is careful but not certain. Back in Ukraine, one post showed a car riddled with bullets, its body full of holes, matching a vehicle Oleksandr had shown earlier, and another photo showed him in a bandage, possibly after a wound.

His page had been inactive since 16 November 2025, and the team initially feared he had been killed. They later found what they believe is his new account under the name "Aleksandr Famenok", a soldier in camouflage and a balaclava, identified by comparing his eyebrows, eyes, and brow ridges to earlier photos.

That facial comparison is the team's assessment, not a confirmed identification, and EP cannot independently verify it.