A UKRAINIAN mum went behind enemy lines to rescue her daughter who had been snatched at school by Russian troops.
Nadiya Hrechnya, 37, crossed five countries and travelled more than 5,000 miles to bring Gulmira Latypova home.
Her daughter was among at least 20,000 Ukrainian children taken from their families at the start of the war.
Gulmira, now 13, is back at home — one of 1,898 to be returned so far — and owes it all to her mum who refused to give up hope.
She was bundled on to a bus by gun-toting enemy soldiers in Kharkiv’s frontline city of Kupiansk.
By the time Nadiya arrived to collect her, Gulmira was gone.
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Nadiya, who was heavily pregnant at the time, said: “The security guard at the school gate said, ‘You’re too late. Russia took the children’.
“I asked him where they were but he had no idea. None of the teachers were allowed to go with them.
“I ran under the rockets as they flew overhead. I was told the Russians were on the opposite side of the river but was stopped by a neighbour who told me not to even think about going there.”
Barmaid Nadiya refused to accept that her daughter was gone and began a desperate search that lasted an agonising four months.
What happened next reads like a movie script.
Once an international charity had located Gulmira deep inside Russian-occupied Luhansk, Nadiya packed a small bag and set off.
She obtained an ID card, an international passport and left her home for Warsaw in Poland.
From there she headed north, into Lithuania, then on to Latvia, before finally crossing into Russia.
After reaching Moscow she headed south to Rostov-on-Don and then into enemy-held Luhansk where Gulmira was being held hostage at a school.
She arrived at the school late at night and was taken to see the principal before the pair were reunited.
Mum-of-six Nadiya handed over the relevant documents to claim her child and broke down in tears as the pair ran into one another’s arms.
They returned via the same route, heading to Moscow, then Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and finally Ukraine.
Gulmira, who is now back at school in Kharkiv, said: “I am so happy to be home.
“I had no idea what was going to happen to me. I was totally alone.
“I’m pleased to be home but there are others still being held.” No one knows exactly how many kids were taken by troops led by Vladimir Putin, below.
A number of groups have been set up to try to find them.
The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation offers children such as Gulmira recreational trips to recover from their ordeals.
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife, Olena, has teamed up with US First Lady Melania Trump to ensure stolen children are not forgotten.