Texas couple flees Ukraine with adopted son near death

A Texas couple marooned in a blizzard of Ukrainian bureaucracy narrowly escaped the embattled nation this week — with their newly-adopted son near death and thousands of Russian troops massed at the border.

Four-year-old Ruslan, who Kelci and Theron Jagge saved from a Dickensian orphanage in Eastern Ukraine, was suffering from severe pneumonia and malnourishment as they frantically tried to get him back to their native San Antonio.

“If we had been stuck there one day more, I don’t know if he would have made it,” new mom Kelci Jagge, 33, told The Post.

Ruslan, who has cerebral palsy and has required a feeding tube, was also suffering severe withdrawal symptoms after being treated with opioids by the orphanage.

“He never cried. Later we realized it was because he was sedated,” Kelci Jagge said.

The harrowing story began in mid-2020 after the couple converted to Christianity and decided to adopt a special-needs child. Kelci works as interior designer, while husband Theron, 33, is a mobile service manager. The pair already have two biological children, Emma, 11, and Hudson, 3.

In 2021 they formally began the process after connecting with a local adoption agency.

“They have a lot of kids in Ukraine. I started following a lot of families [on social media] who had adopted these kids and to see the before and after is mind blowing,” said Kelci. “I saw this little boy and I cried for a week looking at his picture.”

When the Jagges first arrived at the orphanage in Kramatorsk during a visit in late December, administrators did everything they could to try and dissuade them from adopting Ruslan. They warned he would be difficult and require constant and lifetime care. They said there were other children without issues who needed a home — but the Jagges were undeterred.

“We just know he was abandoned at birth at the hospital. He spent some time in the hospital before going to an orphanage. His father was not identified. His mother died in late 2021,” Kelci said. “We just felt we had to do this.”

On Jan. 31, the Jagges returned to the country to finalize the adoption. The new family needed to first present their case to the local adoption court on Feb 3.

Talk of war between Ukraine and Russia had been swirling for weeks. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously invaded in 2014 — slicing off the resort town of Crimea from Ukrainian control. Kramatorsk, in the country’s Donetsk region, has long been the site of Russian meddling and incursions.

It was “the scary area” of the country, as Kelci Jagge put it, and she was eager to leave.

The judge agreed to waive the 30-day waiting period. They were allowed to pick up their son from the orphanage on Feb. 8 — but by that point locals were getting scarcer in Kramatorsk and the city was being overrun with journalists.

The family secured a visa for Ruslan at the US embassy in Kiev on Feb. 11 — just before the embassy was evacuated.

“The [war] news was really ramping up. We kept getting messages from people in the US,” Kelci said.

When they reached the airport for their flight to Amsterdam, however, Ukrainian border guards wouldn’t let them board, claiming the adoption papers were invalid — and invoking the 30-day wait period which had been waived.

“I kept saying, ‘Look at our son, he is going to die if you make us stay here 30 days,’ and they did not care,” Kelci recalled. The US embassy was unreachable by then so the family headed back to the hotel in Kiev to wait — and pray.

On Monday, as Ruslan continued to deteriorate, a lawyer for the Jagges set out to the airport to try a last-ditch parlay with the border guards.

“We took pictures of our son, who was doing much worse, we sent doctors notes,” Kelci said.

It worked. The border guard boss lifted the hold and cleared them for travel. With the help of the non-profit Exitus, the family was booked on a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.

They finally arrived in San Antonio in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Speaking later in the week to The Post from the pediatric intensive care unit of University Hospital in San Antonio, Kelci said Ruslan was undergoing a battery of tests and treatments — but that the doctors believe the worst is over.

“Right now I feel like an indescribable relief.”

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