According to Russian propaganda, citing a self-proclaimed leader in Donetsk, civilians in eastern Ukraine are hiding their children to avoid being kidnapped by the Ukrainian soldiers.
DISINFORMATION: Ukrainian soldiers are kidnapping children in the territories under Kyiv’s occupation
NEWS: Residents of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in the Kyiv-controlled areas who do not want to be evacuated to Ukraine are forced to hide their children to prevent their forced transportation, DPR leader Denis Pushilin told the Rossiya 24 TV station.
"Parents in the localities that are still under occupation are forced to hide their children so that they are not taken from them by force," said Pushilin [...]
He added that the "White Angel" organization kidnaps children and forcibly transports them. According to Pushilin, the organization consists mainly of reserve officers. "It is a forced evacuation. If the parents refuse to evacuate, then the children are taken by force. There are already quite a few such facts and testimonies," the leader of the region stressed. [...] A number of complaints and testimonies have been sent by parents to the Ombudsman for Children in the DPR.
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukrainian soldiers kidnap children in Donbas. 2. Part of the Donetsk region is under the occupation of Kyiv’s troops.
PURPOSE: To justify Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine; to demonize the Ukrainian authorities in the regions occupied by the Russian army.
REALITY: Ukrainians are evacuating the population, including children, in the context of the Russian army's offensive
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The Ukrainian military is not kidnapping children in Donbas or deporting them, as the self-proclaimed leader of the DPR, supported by Moscow for several years, claims. Ukrainian solders and volunteers are evacuating civilians from towns that are heavily bombed by the Russian army. The organization "White Angel" does not steal children, it saves civilian lives. Journalists from around the world have written about the Ukrainian police and military who organized the evacuation from Donbas and saved thousands of lives. The BBC reported in a video report how Ukraine’s evacuation “angels” are risking their lives to save the civilians bombed by Putin's army. The film " White Angel – the End of Marinka" participated in the DOK Leipzig film festival and won the grand prize at the New York Festivals 2024 TV & Film Awards in the USA. The "White Angel" organization also consists of a network of volunteers in eastern Ukraine, who have taken on the role of rescuing civilians during the period of intense military confrontations.
According to Ukraine’s Code of Civil Protection , adopted in 2012, the state has the right to take mandatory, forced evacuation measures if the lives of civilians, regardless of age, are endangered. The activities of the Ukrainian authorities fall under the notion of evacuation, while any evacuation of civilians from territories occupied by the Russian military is considered deportation or forced displacement. Ukraine and its Western partners have repeatedly accused Russia of deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied territories. Deporting minors to Russia or Russian-occupied territories without the consent of their family or legal guardians is a war crime under the UN definition of genocide. Moscow denies the allegation and says it was only protecting vulnerable children in the war zone.
It should be noted that, according to international law, the occupying forces in Donbas are those of the Russian Federation, which invaded Ukraine. Moscow controls part of Donbas, an area that includes the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The international community rejected and condemned the illegal annexation of Ukrainian regions to Russia in 2022, supporting Kyiv's defensive efforts. "We do not and will never recognize the illegal referendums that Russia organized as a pretext for this new violation of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, nor the falsified and illegal results. We will never recognize this illegal annexation", states the declaration of the leaders of the 27 EU member states .
LOCAL CONTEXT/SOCIAL ETHOS: Following the fighting of 2014-2015, a number of districts in the Donetsk region, which belongs to Ukraine under international law, were occupied by Moscow-funded separatists. Later, the Kremlin recognized the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic and made the decision to annex it to Russia, along with three other Ukrainian regions, without having fully controlled this territorial administrative unit. In the context of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian army is carrying out an intensive activity of evacuating the population from localities where the security situation is deteriorating or where the Russian army could enter in the near future. One of the organizations that carried out evacuation missions is "White Angel", established under the main directorate of national police in the Donetsk region. In December 2022, the organization managed to evacuate the entire population of Mariinka, which shortly after the end of the evacuations was completely destroyed by the Russian army.
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