Russia, which boasts of taking in 700,000 children, stands accused of trying to erase their Ukrainian identity

During the 14 months for which Veronika Vlasenko attended school in Russia, she was regularly told by teachers and fellow students that she would never be able to go home to Ukraine. “Every day they said to me that I would be staying here for ever and would never leave Russia,” she said. “They told me that Ukraine doesn’t exist, that it never existed, that we’re all Russians … At times the other kids would beat me for being pro-Ukrainian.”

Veronika was one of nearly 20,000 children documented by Ukrainian authorities as having been taken from Ukraine to Russia over the past two years. The authorities believe the real number is probably 10 times that, while Russian officials have even boasted of moving 700,000 Ukrainian children to Russia.

GUR agency says it is working to confirm whether Oleg Sergeevich Stegachyov, ‘directly involved in missile strikes on Ukraine’, survived attack

• What we know on day 711

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been visiting Ukrainian troops on the southeastern front and handing out medals, his office said on Sunday.

Reuters reports that the move comes amid intense speculation that his popular army chief could soon be sacked.

Russian claims that western weapons used in attack on town in Moscow-controlled Luhansk region

Russia’s emergencies ministry said workers had retrieved the bodies of 20 people from the rubble following a Ukrainian attack on a building housing a bakery in the city of Lysychansk in the occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

On Saturday, the ministry shared video of emergency workers lifting two bloodied people on to stretchers and carrying them out of the ruins of a building. It said previously that its workers rescued 10 people and handed them to doctors.