French actor Jean Reno said that he created the novel "The Escape" (L'Évasion) after the news about near 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted by russia.
Reno himself said this in an interview with Télé 7.
The book "The Escape" was published in early April by the French publishing house XO Éditions.
According to Reno, the idea for the novel emerged a few years ago after reports of mass deportations of Ukrainian children. He noted that he found the information unacceptable and decided to create a fictional story on the subject.
"I thought it was crazy that these children were taken to brainwash them. I'm not into politics, I wanted to make a novel out of it," the actor said.
The book's plot focuses on a heroine named Emma, a former masseuse who works for the French foreign intelligence agency DGSE. She goes undercover to Siberia to get to the center where kidnapped Ukrainian children are being held and document these actions.
Recall that the deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children by the aggressor country of russia since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 are crimes against humanity.
As of the end of 2025, more than 19,500 Ukrainian children were known to have been deported or forcibly relocated by russia from the occupied territories. Separate international investigations have documented at least 1,200 confirmed cases of deportation or forcible relocation of children from several regions of Ukraine.
International organizations note that such relocations are accompanied by a change in the children's citizenship and personal data, which violates their right to preserve their identity.
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