Russia Targeting Young People In Mobilization Drive In Occupied Ukrainian Territories Prokudin

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) Head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Prokudin said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

“Russian invaders are using schools as a direct tool for militarization and ideological indoctrination. Educational institutions in the temporarily occupied territories are placed under round-the-clock security by the Russian National Guard. They have banned students from using phones and threatened parents with the loss of parental rights and confiscation of property if they refuse to send their children to so-called patriotic education classes.

“Through organizations such as the Movement of the First and Yunarmiya, teenagers are forced to participate in propaganda events, taught basic military skills, and prepared to become 'cannon fodder,'” Prokudin said.

He stressed that mobilization in the Russian-occupied areas on the left bank of the Kherson region has been going on for a long time and is systematic. Russian forces regularly conduct nighttime raids, go from house to house, and block streets in some settlements in order to hand men military draft notices. At checkpoints for travel to Crimea, men of conscription age are turned back without explanation. However, the enemy's most cynical focus is on young people.

One striking example of such“brainwashing” is the story of 19-year-old Oleksandr Mustiatse from the village of Krynky. The village where he grew up was completely destroyed by Russian forces, literally wiped off the map. The young man was listed in the state registry as a missing child, but ended up in the ranks of the Russian army with a weapon in his hands. When volunteers contacted him, he said he had“always been on Russia's side.”

According to Prokudin, blaming the young man for this would be“a questionable way of looking at the situation, because this is a direct crime committed by the aggressor state.” The regional governor stressed that Russian propaganda had effectively“burned out” this young person's consciousness, first stealing his childhood and then sending him to die for the Kremlin's ambitions.

Prokudin also appealed to parents whose children remain in the temporarily occupied territories. He urged them to leave, warning that otherwise neither they nor their children will have a future.

Read also: About 95 children remain in mandatory evacuation zone in Kherson region

As reported by Ukrinform, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Mariana Betsa said that Russia is pursuing a deliberate policy in the temporarily occupied territories aimed at eradicating Ukrainian children's identity, including through indoctrination, militarization, and forced assimilation.

Photo provided by the Kherson Regional Military Administration

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