KYIV, Ukraine — Ivan Sarancha was 7 when Ukrainian literature and history classes disappeared from his school. That was in 2014 after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and began to foment separatist unrest in his eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.
Sarancha says he was too young to realize what was going on back then. But his eyes were fully opened with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later. By then Sarancha was 15. He says he was deeply shocked by Russia's destruction of the port city of Mariupol and its massacre of civilians in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
"I began to develop critical thinking," says Sarancha. "I watched the Russian news and compared it with Ukrainian and American news that I could see using a VPN [an online virtual private network]. And I figured out what was true and what was false. It was just common sense."
That's when Sarancha also began to think about running away from occupied territory to free Ukraine.
The story of this shy 18-year-old's escape from enemy territory to what he calls "the country and culture of his birth" has turned him into a media star and is inspiring a war-weary nation. It's also giving Ukrainians a rare glimpse at life in a region that has long been cut off, as well as a small dose of hope.
The tall, long-haired youth smiles and offers a soft "hullo" — the extent of his English — when he meets NPR for an interview in Kyiv. He's standing in front of the apartment building where he is staying with other Ukrainians who have fled towns along the front line. He says he took big risks to leave a largely peaceful home with his parents.
Sarancha gives the interview in Ukrainian. He says he now feels uncomfortable speaking Russian — spoken in his hometown of Luhansk— preferring instead to speak Ukrainian "as a matter of principle."
Much of his short life has been under the shadow of Putin's war on Ukraine. His region of Luhansk, and neighboring Donetsk, became gray zones when Kremlin-backed separatists declared independence from Ukraine in 2014 and held referendums to proclaim the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics.
At the time, Sarancha says he was too young to realize that provoking chaos and instability in Ukraine was Putin's revenge for the pro-European uprising in Kyiv's Maidan Square months earlier known as "the Revolution of Dignity."
Sarancha says an atmosphere of fear pervades everything in his hometown of Luhansk, the capital of the region of the same name.
"There is basically no political or public activity because any opinion for or against anything could get you in trouble," he says.
Sarancha says people are most afraid of being taken to a place known as "the basement" for interrogation.
He says his hometown changed dramatically after the full-scale invasion.
"Many Russians started moving to Luhansk, and for the first time we had traffic jams," Sarancha says. "On my way to school one day, I counted more than a hundred Russian flags along the main street. It really shocked me. There were even flags with Putin's face on them."
He says most young people his age support Ukraine over Russia — but would never openly talk about it. He says locals don't dare protest. Though sometimes people will give Russians wrong directions as an act of personal defiance.
After the war started, Sarancha joined pro-Ukraine groups online. And he began to speak Ukrainian — though only with his internet friends.
It had become too dangerous to speak Ukrainian in public. "They would have beaten me and taken me to the basement, first by the police and then by the [Russian] Federal Security Service," he says.
He had to hide his views from his parents, who support Putin. He says they believed Russian propaganda. For example, they believe the falsehood that Ukraine staged the massacres in Bucha and made fake videos to sway global opinion, he says, even though it's well documented that Russian forces carried out the killings.
As he began to entertain the idea of escaping, Sarancha for the first time noticed flyers on a wall that said, "We help people leave for Ukraine from Luhansk and Donetsk."
"They were like ordinary advertisements and I saw some of the numbers were torn off so I realized there are maybe a lot of people who want to leave, and I never realized that before," he says.
Like a Ukrainian underground railroad, there is a whole network of organizations helping people flee from Russian occupied territory.
Kate works for one of them, called "Helping to Leave." She is Russian but says she can't give her last name because it's dangerous work.
The Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories are now separated from Ukraine by the front line. To get to Ukraine, you have to pass through Russia or a third country such as Belarus. That means going through an extensive interrogation and search process on the Russian border known as "filtration."
"It's definitely frightening," says Kate. "People check your phones, your belongings and often look for a reason to detain you. It's a very dangerous process and not everyone is allowed to leave."
Kate says it's becoming more and more difficult to get out of Russian-occupied Ukraine. In 2023 thousands of people escaped. Last year only a few hundred made it out.
Sarancha began watching videos of how other people had made it through filtration to prepare mentally. He realized his phone was full of pro-Ukrainian information. So he bought a new one and filled it with pro-Russian pictures and messages.
He got a job and began saving money. He told his parents he would be 18 soon and wanted to go somewhere to celebrate — his first solo trip. His parents would not allow him to travel to Moscow, or Georgia, where there had been protests, but finally agreed he could spend a few days in Rostov-on-Don, a Russian city 100 miles south of Luhansk.
What they didn't know was that from there, Sarancha planned to travel on to Moscow and Belarus, where there is a humanitarian corridor allowing entry into Ukraine.
Sarancha says his plans were further complicated by his short time window.
"If you're not 18 you can't cross the border into Belarus without a certificate from your parents," he says.
But to leave Luhansk without any problems he needed to be 17 — and below Russian military draft age.
On a cold dark January morning, the day before Sarancha's 18th birthday, his father took him to the bus station.
"I was sitting there thinking, what am I doing?" he remembers. "I thought, where will I be in a week — Luhansk? Russia? Ukraine? I was so worried. But I pulled myself together and decided to go all the way."
When he arrived in Rostov-on-Don he checked into a hotel for the day. His guide, who he communicated with over his phone, advised doing so because his mother had asked to see pictures of his room.
Sarancha took pictures of himself in the room and in different changes of clothing at popular spots around the city. He sent them to his parents so they wouldn't suspect anything.
That evening he boarded a bus for the 600-mile, overnight trip to Moscow. He says he was nervous, as it was full of Russian soldiers.
The next day when Sarancha arrived in Moscow, it was his birthday. His parents called him, believing he was still in Rostov-on-Don.
"My parents are the kind of people who like to drink often," Sarancha says. "So they had already begun celebrating my birthday. And that was to my advantage. I told them, go ahead and celebrate and don't worry about me since you're having fun."
Meanwhile, he took a train on to Minsk, the Belarusian capital. He'd brought food along but couldn't eat a thing he was so anxious.
He says his biggest fear was that his own parents would find out the truth and alert the authorities. Once in Minsk, he headed straight for the Ukrainian Embassy.
"And that's when I saw the flag of Ukraine for the first time," Sarancha says. "It was so big, so beautiful. I had tears in my eyes. I had not seen that flag since the first grade."
At first officials at the embassy thought Sarancha was Russian and told him to go away. But he insisted, showing them the only Ukrainian document he had: his birth certificate. After a meeting with the ambassador himself, the embassy issued Sarancha a temporary Ukrainian passport.
The last stop on his risky trip was the Belarusian border with Ukraine, where he went through filtration.
"They told me, 'Unlock your phone and hand it over,' " Sarancha recalls. One guard scrolled through it, scrutinizing his pictures and messages. Another stood behind him. They questioned him and searched his bag.
Sarancha says the tension was unbearable. But he was somehow able to remain calm and they finally opened the barrier and let him through. He walked the few hundred feet to the Ukrainian border and freedom.
Sarancha says he likes everything about Ukraine. "Everyone is united for the sake of one goal," he says.
He says at first his parents didn't believe he was in Ukraine. His mother was hysterical. He says he wants his parents to recognize the truth about the war and has threatened to block them on his phone until they do. He also misses them terribly.
Sarancha wants to become a sculptor and hopes to enter the Kyiv Art Academy next fall. But for now he admits he doesn't mind the media attention.
Ukrainian TV reporter Karina Kyrychenko who has come to interview him says Sarancha's bravery is an inspiration for the entire country.
"His story is necessary for all Ukrainians right now because everyone is tired and his story has a lot motivation," she says.
Kyrychenko says Sarancha is proof that Russia's indoctrination of a generation of youth in the occupied territories may not be working after all. There are Ukrainians there waiting to be liberated.
NPR's Polina Lytvynova and Hanna Palamarenko contributed to this story.
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