Lubinets: children in TOT forced to join youth military organizations
The ombudsman said this during a conversation with journalists, according to a Ukrinform correspondent.
“Children in the temporarily occupied territories are required to be members of youth military organizations. I am sincerely convinced that the main philosophy of the Russian Federation regarding Ukrainian children is to use them as a resource for the next generation of Russian soldiers,” Lubinets said.
According to him, this is an open colonial policy - the Russians have occupied part of Ukraine and are using the local population to continue their aggression.
Among the organizations that children in the temporarily occupied territories are forced to join, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner mentioned Yunarmiya, Children of the Caucasus, and Children of Heroes.
He added that the Russian Federation is actively changing the documents of Ukrainian children to make it difficult to identify and return them.
“When translating [documents] from Ukrainian into Russian, they change the children's names and surnames. Sometimes they do this deliberately,” Lubinets said. According to him, after significant changes to the name and surname, the Russians argue that the child has no connection to Ukraine, so there is no need to return them.
As reported by Ukrinform, Lubinets said that Ukraine has managed to return a total of 1,902 children.
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