KIDNAPPED Ukrainian kids are being forced to fight against their fellow countrymen for the Russian army once they reach adulthood, intelligence reports have revealed.
Since Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of children have been abducted in the occupied territories by Moscow’s forces.
Bring Kids Back UkraineMore than 19,500 children have been forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia[/caption]
Bring Kids Back UkraineThe kids are reportedly being forced to don Russian khakis and head to the front when they hit 18[/caption]
ReutersThe Kremlin claims the relocation of Ukrainian children is simply a ‘humanitarian’ move[/caption]
GettyChildren will be sent on to military training depots when they hit their late teens[/caption]
More than 19,500 children have been forcibly deported from Ukraine to Russia according to reports, many of whom end up in chilling “re-education camps”.
Here, they face unbearably cruel treatment as Putin’s grunts try to brainwash them into believing they are Russian.
Some estimates put the number of abducted children as high as 35,000.
Twisted Russian captors have even reportedly told these kids their parents “have abandoned” them, according to Human Rights Watch.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and his children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over these abductions in 2023.
But in a sickening update, British intelligence now reports that these kids are being forced to don Russian khakis and head to the front when they hit 18.
Citing Ukrainian government officials, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) said the kidnapped children are made to take a “direct part” in the war against their fellow Ukrainians once they turn of age.
The MOD’s intelligence update says: “The Russian senior leadership almost certainly views, at least in part, abducted Ukrainian children as a potential source of both current, and future personnel for the Russian military.”
They added that any deaths of Ukrainian kids in combat would get “minimal if any objection” from the Russian public – many of whom are unaware of the abductions.
The Kremlin claims the relocation of Ukrainian children is simply a “humanitarian” move.
But survivors of the re-education camps have shared horrifying testimony of the brutal conditions they endured.
Many reported being beaten and starved in the camps, while being forced to sing the Russian national anthem.
They were also strictly banned from speaking the Ukrainian language.
The MOD’s report says that around 6,000 of the abducted kids have been sent to these re-education camps in locations across the Russian Federation.
From there, the children will be sent on to military training depots when they hit their late teens.
“The abduction and forced conscription of Ukrainian children into the Russian military fits into the Russian senior leadership’s long-standing Russification policy in illegally occupied Ukrainian territory, which seeks to extirpate Ukrainian culture, identity and statehood,” the report adds.
Maksym Maksymov, Head of Projects at Bring Kids Back UA, told The Sun: “Children are always the most vulnerable victims of armed conflict.
“In Russia’s war, Ukrainian children have not only undergone trauma and displacement, they have also suffered systemic deportation, illegal adoption, and forced assimilation.
“If that’s not enough, Russia is subjecting Ukrainian children to militarisation, conscripting them to the Russian Army and forcing them to fight against their home country.
“For those of us who have observed Putin’s actions up close for more than a decade, we are well accustomed to their evasion, distortion and calculated indifference.
“But even we are appalled by the deliberate cruelty and disconnection from reality when it comes to the fate of our stolen children.
“For the sake of global peace, Russia must return Ukrainian children home – then we can speak about a credible path forward.”
‘I was snatched by Russian soldier’
ILLIA, 11, was deported from Mariupol after a Russian missile strike killed his mother and left him with horror shrapnel wounds when he was nine.
His neighbours buried his mum’s body in their back garden before he was snatched by Vlad’s soldiers and taken for surgery at a camp in Donestk.
The shrapnel was removed without any anaesthetic and he was forced to write and speak Russian and repeat “Glory to Ukraine as part of Russia”.
He says Russian forces tried to turn him into a “propaganda tool” but that he is not “one to be duped so easily.”
Illia’s grandmother had been searching for her grandson ever since losing contact with her daughter in March 2022.
It wasn’t until they spotted the young boy in a video from Russia that she realised he was alone and that her daughter had been killed.
His grandmother never gave up hope and set about getting her injured grandson back home where he belonged.
Months later, Illia returned home to Ukraine and had further surgery to remove more fragments from his leg, while 11 remain.
His grandmother Olena said: “He had a school, he had a home, he had a mother and he lost all of that – his entire childhood.
“He kept to himself, he was afraid of noise, he was afraid of sirens. He had no memory.
He now has dreams of becoming a doctor so that he can help fighters on the frontline as a combat medic.
Daria Zarivna, a member of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s staff, previously told The Sun that Russia plans to use these brainwashed kids as a “weapon” against Ukraine and Europe more broadly.
She said: “We are working on keeping this matter in the spotlight and we think that it is extremely important that it be a part of these talks because the Ukrainian children which Russia keeps under its control.
“It’s a threat to global security, to Ukraine’s security.
“There are 1.6 million Ukrainian children currently staying in the temporarily occupied territories under the control of Russia.
“They’ve been indoctrinated, they’ve been militarised.”
It comes as the Russian war machine continues to attempt further pushes into Ukrainian territory and deadly strikes against the country’ major cities.
But Putin has sent tens of thousands of his soldiers to their deaths in his brutal war of conquest.
In June, Russian casualties in Ukraine soared past the bloody one million mark – which includes those killed and injured in battle.
The Kremlin’s forces currently occupy around 20 per cent of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, devastating the country and its people in the process.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are reported to have died in heinous Russian strikes on civilian targets throughout the war.
AFPVladimir Putin meets with Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, both of whom are wanted by the ICC[/caption]
AlamyUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a site where missiles struck an apartment building[/caption]
Bring Kids Back UkraineSurvivors of the re-education camps have shared horrifying testimony[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
