WASHINGTON: Project Dynamo, the private organization behind the operation, announced Wednesday that two American children who were born to surrogate mothers in eastern Ukraine and moved to Russia after the war began have been returned to their American parents.
The twin boy and girl were "rescued" on Tuesday after the group's first mission inside Russian territory, according to a statement from Project Dynamo.
The Tampa, Florida-based organization was founded in 2021 to aid in the evacuation of US and Afghan allies during the turbulent troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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According to AFP, the children were not taken hostage, but were instead taken to Estonia's "contacts" in Russia.
The surrogate mother lived in the Donbass, a part of eastern Ukraine currently under Russian military control. Before arriving in St. Petersburg, where she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in early September, she took refuge from the war in the Crimea.
The parents, a Texas couple who asked not to be named, had tried unsuccessfully to bring the children back after they were sent to an orphanage in the city.
The NGO was then contacted by the parents, and Brian Stern, one of its co-founders, went to Estonia to start the mission from the border town of Narva.
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The press release stated only that "the mission took about a week to set up and was completed in one day," without going into detail about how the children were extracted.
Brian Stern expressed "deep gratitude to the US Embassies in Tallinn and Moscow, without going into detail of any assistance they may have provided.
When asked what assistance US embassies provided, a spokesperson for the NGO simply said that they "played a role." Additionally, the US State Department declined to elaborate. A spokesperson said, "We are aware of this information. We will not be commenting further at this time due to confidentiality concerns."
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Children of American couples born abroad through a surrogate mother or in-vitro fertilization are automatically granted US citizenship, provided at least one parent is biologically related to the child.