Anna smiles, and yet it seems as if she will start crying at any moment. The 13-year-old is standing on a huge stage in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, alongside a dozen other children. It’s February 22nd, the day after tomorrow is the anniversary of the start of the “special operation” in Ukraine, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has invited to the big propaganda show. Anna’s performance will be one of the highlights.
But first a moderator announces the soldier Yuri Gagarin. “Angel,” his nickname, gave up his normal life to volunteer in Ukraine. Since then, he has brought 367 children to safety from Mariupol, the audience learns. A video of his alleged heroic deeds is shown, not a single scene seems authentic. Russian television nevertheless captures tearful spectators at the stadium.
“Yuri, these are the children you saved. Do you remember Anna? She’s here and wants to tell you something important,” a moderator transfers to Anna. When Gagarin looks at her, she avoids his eyes. The 13-year-old nervously runs her left hand through her shoulder-length, black hair. Anna starts, but her voice is lost. She takes a deep breath. “Annuchka, don’t be shy. We’re with you, speak,” she encourages the presenter and strokes her back. Anna gets the curve.
“Thank you, Uncle Yuri, for saving me, my sister and hundreds of thousands of children from Mariupol,” she promises herself. Tears well up in her eyes. “I’m a little excited.” The moderator quickly pushes her to Gagarin, the script calls for a hug. Your posture speaks volumes.
What the propaganda doesn’t say: Today Anna is on the stage in Moscow as an orphan because Russian bombs kill her mother when Putin’s war of aggression hits Mariupol with full force.
The verification team from stern and RTL succeeded in tracing parts of Anna’s life and speaking to people who know her and her family. What we learned shows how ruthlessly Russia abuses Ukrainian children for its own interests. When researching Anna, we inevitably came across “Uncle Juri”. We were also able to trace his “career” and confronted him with questions. One thing is certain: he is not the selfless “angel” he is being sold as.
Anna grew up as the eldest of three siblings. Even before the war, her childhood was not easy. Her father dies early, mother Olga is not a real anchor. She doesn’t take good care of Anna. We discovered them in pictures of a Mariupol children’s home. She will come to the facility in early March 2013, not yet four years old. “Her life has been stressful, she is very tense,” write the caregivers to the photo of Anna. She also celebrates her fifth birthday in the home, she seems happy surrounded by the other children. Anna can be seen there for the last time on a recording from August 2015. It is not known whether she will then go to another institution or return to her mother. The children’s home did not respond to our request.
There are indications online that her mother Olga was at least in need of help. A photo from December 2020 shows her with Anna’s siblings Karolina and Danya receiving a food donation from a foundation for poor and large families. Anna is missing from the picture – maybe she is at school. According to our research, she lives with Olga and her siblings again from the beginning of the war at the latest.
The mother of a former classmate also tells us about problematic family relationships. “Anna had to go through a lot of bad things,” she says. “Your mother led a very bad life.” The woman does not want to be more specific. A neighbor who knows Anna and her family from the time they spent in the shelter of an emergency shelter tells us that Anna’s mother was also caught stealing. That cannot be confirmed. Posts on social media suggest she was suffering from a breakup.
Olga can no longer defend herself against the allegations: she dies from shrapnel in early April 2022. “She ran out of cigarettes, left the children in the basement and went out with her partner, even though there was heavy shelling,” the neighbor said. Olga was fatally hit, her boyfriend suffered serious leg injuries. The information corresponds to information from a Telegram group on war dead from Mariupol. Olga is buried on the grounds of a hospital, it is said.
According to the neighbor, the three children were picked up from the emergency shelter by Artur F., the father of Karolina and Danya, after their mother’s death. “It was the last time I saw her. I don’t know where he took her.” We try several times to contact Artur F., he leaves our inquiries unanswered.
It is questionable whether the man, who has a criminal record for illegal possession of weapons, among other things, actually takes care of the children. It seems more plausible that the siblings – of all things in the chaos of the most violent attacks – are initially on their own and are therefore even more susceptible to influence than they already are. A found fodder for Russia’s propagandists.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the siblings made their first “public” appearance on the Telegram channel of Yulia Martovalieva, a journalist at the Kremlin channel RT and head of the no less pro-government project “Children of War”. She claims to have heard about a different version than the one we were told. Accordingly, Artur F. disappeared after Olga’s death, the children had searched for him in vain and came across their organization. She was brought to safety and contact with Artur F. was established a little later, Martovalieva claims at the beginning of May. As luck would have it, she is there live with a camera team from the supposed “rescue”.
Russian television viewers were presented with Anna, her siblings and Yuri Gagarin for the first time a good week later. The report shows the alleged rescue from Mariupol with a bus through whose rainy windows the children are allowed to wave to the spectators. The camera stays on when Anna and Danya enter their new home. The 13-year-old does not get a chance to speak. Gagarin is also not allowed to speak. Instead, the “rescue fairy tale” is repeated: “Uncle Juri” rescued the children from the greatest need, brought them to safety and then also found the missing Artur F..
Who is the man that Russia has been trying to make a hero for almost a year?
There is no question that the good “Uncle Yuri” is an artificial figure – created for Putin’s propaganda war. Even his name is probably more intentional than accidental reminiscence of a Soviet hero who is still larger than life today: namesake Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, the first human in space. The Kremlin media initially tried to sell Gagarin as a small businessman who volunteered for the special operation. In fact, some companies that have since been dissolved – primarily from the construction industry – were registered in his name in the Russian commercial register, sometimes he was the managing director. A 2018 article mentions Gagarin, born in Rybinsk in 1969 according to passport data, as the deputy director of a metal plant.
The Russian army needed almost three months to conquer the port city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Thousands of civilians are killed in the fierce fighting, and hundreds of thousands flee the city, which has largely been completely destroyed.
In mid-May, the last Azov fighters surrendered in the Azovstal steelworks – not only a strategic military success for Russia, but above all a symbolic one. The far-right past of the defeated Azov regiment is one of the main engines of the Russian propaganda machine.
When exactly Gagarin goes to Ukraine is not known. He appears in the first social media videos in early April 2022, when Russia is gaining the upper hand in the battle for Mariupol. It is striking that the recordings never show the man with the alias “Angel” in combat. Other plans are pursued with him: Always accompanied by cameras, he supports civilians in the ruined houses of the embattled city with food and medical aid; assures them that they will be taken to safety soon. The children present always dutifully thank “Uncle Juri”. An angel stop.
The media are now also working on his legendary status. At the end of April, the portal “Our Chelyabinks” reports that Gagarin was awarded a medal for bravery for “his heroism in rescuing the children from Mariupol”. Shortly thereafter, he has his appearance in the mentioned RT post. Further reports make Gagarin popular and a welcome talk show guest.
In addition, he is now increasingly present at public events – sometimes in the company of prominent figures. Pictures show Gagarin with Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin’s chief envoy for children’s rights. Just last Friday, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Belova, who is accused of war crimes in connection with the targeted deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” recently titled the 38-year-old, who was subject to EU sanctions, as an “architect of repopulation”.
Gagarin appears in mid-May at an event of the nationalist-minded rocker group the “Night Wolves”. For an allegedly insignificant businessman, he is surprisingly well connected. In a photo you can see him with “Night Wolves” boss and Putin friend Alexander Saldostanov.
In June, a charitable foundation is established, which translates to “Angel for the children”. Gagarin’s name does not appear in the foundation documents. But: Some companies have their headquarters at the noted address – including a company that is registered in the name of Julia Irekowna Atnabayeva: Gagarin’s wife.
At about the same time, a telegram channel of the same name goes online, on which videos of Gagarin and his deeds are posted. There are several channel admins including him and his wife.
The channel still contains recordings of Anna and her siblings that are not found anywhere else, who, according to the RT report at the beginning of May, are initially staying in a district of Mariupol to the east of the Asovstal steelworks – less than two kilometers as the crow flies from the place where “Uncle Juri” “freed” her from the greatest danger a few weeks earlier.
In mid-June, Anna and Danya can be seen there in photos together with Gagarin and Eleonora Fedorenko, also subject to EU sanctions for kidnapping Ukrainian children. In a video published the next day, Danya brings bread to the accommodation, Anna can look forward to a bicycle in mid-July. After that, the children no longer play a role in Gagarin’s Telegram channel. Apparently they have provided enough pictures for the propaganda for the time being.
Almost at the same time, the reporting about the 53-year-old, who is said to have a military background, changed. Times say he is a retired lieutenant colonel who also served in Afghanistan. Sometimes he is presented as the commander of an assault battalion. It is at least doubtful that a volunteer – even with military experience – will be put under the command of a battalion that usually consists of hundreds of soldiers in the Russian army in a very short time.
It seems documented that Gagarin did military service. A few years ago, the 53-year-old posted a slightly yellowed and undated photo on the Russian network Ok.ru, showing him as a young man on a Soviet tank. However, it is doubtful whether he fought in Afghanistan – he was 19 years old at the end of the war – and is probably part of the legend that was intended to be created.
Photos that Gagarin uploaded to the Internet in 2015 are interesting. They show him in the uniform of a lieutenant colonel. His agency: the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency.
When we contact Gagarin via Telegram and confront him with the photos, he denies any secret service past. The pictures – published by him, mind you – are a photomontage, he accuses us of. In the course of the conversation, he repeatedly insists that we mix him up, but of his own accord addresses people who accompanied him in the spring of 2022 – documented by videos and pictures. Gagarin also contradicts himself on other points. Then he claims that “Juri Gagarin” is only his nickname and not his real name.
Two days after we contacted him, he deleted large parts of our correspondence with him.
In Russia, Gagarin’s FSB past is not an issue. But not everyone likes his meteoric rise. War criminal Igor Girkin, who was recently sentenced for shooting down the MH17 passenger plane over Ukraine, is particularly harsh. The ex-colonel of the Russian military intelligence service GRU insulted and mocked Gagarin on Telegram at the end of December as a “crook who should be court-martialed”.
That doesn’t harm Gagarin either. Politicians like Duma deputy Sergey Mironov pose with him. At the end of 2022, he will be named “Person of the Year” at a forum. Almost simultaneously, Gagarin rose to become co-chair of a regional branch of the All-Russia Popular Front for Russia — a movement that says it raises money and donations in kind for Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
And Anna? On her mostly private social media profiles, the 13-year-old reveals little about herself or her whereabouts for months. Despite Russia’s “support,” she doesn’t seem happy: “Mom, I want to see you,” she wrote at the end of December for a video with sad music.
At the beginning of March, less than two weeks after her performance in Moscow, Anna is included in the propaganda TV show “AntiFake”.
She reports – again in line with the Kremlin – of Ukrainian soldiers who allegedly threatened to shoot civilians in Mariupol and took away food from children. Beside her: A woman who introduces herself as Anna’s new guardian. Anna has already adapted to her new “mother” not only visually – both are wearing a blue turtleneck sweater:
For a few days now, she has no longer given “Mariupol, Ukraine” as her place of residence in her profile on a video platform, but Russia – she has framed her username on the left with a Russian flag and on the right with a red heart.
Other sources: TV recording of the Luzhniki Stadium event / investigative portal “Important Stories” / Mariupol news portal “mrlp.city” / EU sanctions list entry for Maria Lvova-Belova / EU sanctions list entry for Eleonora Fedorenko / appearance in video by pro -Russian US youtuber Patrick Lancaster / report on the awarding of the Order “Our Chelyabinsk” / Telegram / Instagram / Vk.com / Ok.ru / Facebook / Likee
