The Guardian Follows Ukrainian Children Placed in the Italian Alps

The Guardian reported this week on Ukrainian children who were evacuated from state care after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, and who now say they do not want to go home. Kyiv wants them back, according to the paper, but many of the children resist.

The report opens in a small village in the Italian Alps, where a 15-year-old identified only as Denys arrived in March 2022 after an overnight bus journey. He told the Guardian he felt homesick and confused at first, and that his future, in his own words, lies in the EU.

The Guardian frames the story as a tug of war over children who were already in state custody before the war, and whose placement abroad has since become a question of national policy for Ukraine rather than a matter of private fostering.

The piece is carried by the Guardian's global development desk, which reports on the arrangements made for children in institutional care when the invasion began and on the positions taken since by Ukrainian authorities. The paper does not identify the specific village in the Alps where Denys was placed, and La Veduta cannot confirm which province or institution was involved.

That restraint matters here. The Guardian's account describes a wider European placement effort rather than a single national programme, and it does not state how many of the children were placed in Italy, in the Alpine provinces, or in Trentino-Alto Adige specifically. The paper names the Alps as a setting, not as a policy actor.

What the report does establish is a divergence of view: the Ukrainian state's position that the children should return, and the stated preference of at least some of the young people to remain in the EU. The Guardian attributes both positions to the people it interviewed and to Ukrainian policy, and does not report a resolution.

For readers in this region, the dispatch is a reminder of how the 2022 evacuations reached small mountain communities that rarely appear in international coverage. Beyond that, the Guardian does not report any regional administrative role, funding arrangement or dispute, and this bureau will not supply one.