Concerns about Russia’s role in the Ukrainian war have grown as more information has come to light about how the Russian government is kidnapping and hiring kids and teens for their military.
There have been many claims that Russia is taking Ukrainian children and teens hostage and sending them back to Russia. As soon as the kids or teens turn 18, they are signed up to join the Russian military.
One example is Bohdan Yermokhin. He was sent from Ukraine to Moscow on a government plane and put up with a foster family, where he was force-fed Russian government propaganda and nationalist ideas. When he turned 18, he got a letter telling him he needed to join the Russian military.
“They told me that Ukraine was losing, that children were being used as organ donors, and that I would be sent to war right away.” “If they sent me to war, I told them I would fight for my own country, not for them,” Yermokhin said.
He was in a group of kids called “Mariupol 31” that was sent to Russia. Twenty thousand Ukrainian kids have been taken into Russia against their will, and more than two thousand are still missing. The real number may be higher.
Dmytro Lubinets, who is in charge of human rights in Ukraine, said that he thinks Putin’s goal in abducting Ukrainian teens is to destroy Ukrainian culture. “Now we have examples of how Ukrainians were forced to work together.” “All Ukrainian teens who are being held in Russia are put on a list for the Russian military when they turn 18,” he said.
Many people have said that after this kind of recruitment, Russia would try to make people think they were Russian so they would get a passport and be “Russian.” Yermokhin said that the steps mentioned were exactly what he went through, but Russia wasn’t following them at the time.
“Everyone always told me that I was from Russia and that I was born there. They said that there was no such thing as Ukraine and that Mariupol was actually Russia.” Yermokhin said, “But on my Russian passport, it said that I was born in Ukraine, in the city of Mariupol.”
Human Rights Watch said that Russia is breaking the law if it forces people to join its military, which is against the Geneva Conventions.
