A Russian woman recounts her four-year struggle for her child, who was taken to Armenia.

Alexandra has been trying for four years to secure the right to see her son, whom her ex-husband took to Armenia. An Armenian court designated her ex-husband as sole guardian. Alexandra's appeals to the police and guardianship authorities have been unsuccessful. Lawyers have filed a lawsuit to restore her parental rights.

Alexandra is from Russia, and her ex-husband is Armenian. They met in Novosibirsk in 2016. Shortly after they began their relationship, Alexandra became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

The story of Alexandra, who has been trying to get her son back from Armenia for four years, was published on July 30 by the project "Motherless Caucasus." Five years later, the couple decided to separate. In January 2022, Alexandra agreed with her husband that he and their son would travel to Armenia for two months, while Alexandra would find a job and enroll her son in kindergarten.

19:12 21.01.2026

Courts and Customs: How Mothers Are Separated from Their Children in the Caucasus

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But her ex-husband didn't return the child to her. He explained that the situation in Russia was tense and he didn't want his son there. When Alexandra offered to fly over and pick up the child herself, she refused. He still had all the documents necessary for the child's departure. Alexandra had to travel to Novosibirsk to obtain a new certificate to be able to act.

In May 2022, she flew to Armenia for her son's birthday and found him in a difficult psychological state. According to her, no one was caring for his development. The child was at home with his grandparents and had no contact with his peers. To see her son, Alexandra remained in Armenia without a stable job, renting accommodations sometimes with friends and sometimes in hostels.

Gradually, her relationship with her ex-husband improved. Her son started kindergarten, and Alexandra worked two jobs to support herself and pay rent, splitting the cost with her husband. This continued for about a year, but after another conflict, her ex-husband left and took the boy to Vanadzor. From that moment on, Alexandra was no longer alone with her son. His father or relatives were always nearby. The boy was transferred to another kindergarten without her knowledge. There were times when Alexandra didn't even know where her son was or whether he was even in Armenia: her ex-husband and his family would ignore her calls and messages for days.

In April 2026, while attending her child's birthday, she learned from her husband that their union was no longer valid in Armenia. It turned out he had divorced her back in November 2025, but she hadn't been notified of the divorce proceedings. However, she hadn't been deprived of parental rights. In court, her ex-husband gave the address of the rented apartment in Yerevan where Alexandra had lived five years earlier, claiming no one knew where she was and that she wasn't involved in her son's life. At the time, she was in Russia. At a trial she hadn't even heard about, her ex-husband was appointed sole guardian.

Alexandra's friend from Armenia said that Alexandra had tried to see her son, contacting the police, the court, the guardianship authorities, and going to school. But everyone had shrugged their shoulders. The ex-husband says her son doesn't want her. They traveled together to Vanadzor to visit the husband's relatives, and the friend barely managed to persuade the mother-in-law to allow the boy to see his mother.

Later, the court ordered mediation, a mandatory process between the former spouses. It lasted almost two months and yielded no results. The ex-husband continually cited the son's reluctance to see his mother. Then he set a condition: Alexandra must pay child support. But even then, he offered no guarantees of contact with the child.

Recently, Alexandra's lawyers filed a lawsuit to restore her parental rights. Following this appeal, she was granted a pre-trial meeting with her son. She plans to fly to Armenia again.

"I always try to ask about the simplest things: what he's been up to, whether he's learned to ride a bike, whether he has friends. And then I just hug him, tell him about his grandparents, the animals he grew up with, so he knows that his mother and family remember him and think about him. They love him," Alexandra said.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, cases of struggles for the right to see children are common if the father takes the child to the North Caucasus regions. For example, on April 13, Krasnodar resident Maria Smelaya agreed to leave custody of the boy's father and received the right to see the child for a few hours every two weeks. According to her, the decision was forced - after two years of separation, her son had become attached to his father and did not recognize her, and protracted court proceedings were very difficult and expensive. A year earlier, on April 25, 2025, the Prikubansky District Court of Krasnodar approved interim measures in Maria Smelaya's claim and ordered the immediate return of her child, who is presumably in Chechnya. Krasnodar resident Maria Smelaya has seen her son only once since reaching a settlement with the child's father. The visit took place in the presence of her ex-husband, and there are no agreements yet on the location of further meetings, she said. Courts do not respond to violations by fathers, and fulfilling the court's requests for interim measures could have led to a different outcome, human rights activists believe.