'Where is he now?’ Kherson mother looks for son after Russian retreat

FILE PHOTO: Anna Voskoboinik holds up a picture of her son, who she says was arrested by Russian occupation forces three months ago in the city, in Kherson, Ukraine November 17, 2022. REUTERS/Tom Balmforth

KHERSON, Ukraine (Reuters) - Clutching aid she'd received at a crowded humanitarian distribution point in Ukraine's liberated city of Kherson, Anna Voskoboinik, a one-legged woman in a wheelchair, finds it hard to imagine life without her only son.

Russian forces, she said, arrested Oleksii, 38, a former soldier, three months ago at a checkpoint and never released him before they pulled back from the right bank of the Dnipro River after occupying the city for almost nine months.