Lubinets: Russians are turning Ukrainian children into soldiers
Ukrainian children are a resource for Russians, they enlist them in military organisations and turn them into soldiers.
This was stated during the forum "Ukraine. Year 2024" forum, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said, Censor.NET reports citing Ukrinform.
"We constantly emphasise that Ukrainian children are a resource for Russians. They enroll all Ukrainian children in military organisations, train soldiers, brainwash them, and in the future (according to Russians - ed.) they should be members of the Russian army and will fight against us or against another country, including those countries that are now taking the position: "this does not concern us, we probably will not help Ukraine," he said.
According to Lubinets, Russia is a terrorist state and Russians are committing genocide against Ukrainian children and other categories of Ukrainian citizens.
The ombudsman said that representatives of the ICRC, the only organisation with a unique mandate to protect the rights of prisoners of war, have not been able to get to the places where Russians are holding Ukrainian prisoners of war for 10 years.
"As a result, you can see the condition in which we are returning our heroes and heroines from Russian captivity. And as for civilian hostages, according to our unofficial data, about 28,000 Ukrainian citizens are being held in Russian prisons - journalists, local government representatives, church representatives, international representatives," he informed.
Lubinets reminded that the occupiers detained three OSCE officials: two in the Donetsk region and one in the Luhansk region.
"We have not been able to release them for several years. And all this time, Russia has been an OSCE member. Isn't this an indicator that we have a crisis of international organisations? I personally do not believe in international organisations, with all due respect to them. These are the realities," Lubinets said.
He said that the Ukrainian government believes in specific countries.
"We believe in Qatar, which helped us return 11 children recently, and in the efforts of the Vatican. The result of Malta: Canada initiated the creation of a large international coalition to return our children. 70 countries have already joined. I don't want to announce it, but I know that tomorrow we will have the next step, and you will all know about it," Lubinets said.
