Russia draws children from Ukraine's Luhansk region into frontline religious events
Photo: Russian army forces children to take part in frontline religious events (Getty Images)
The Russian forces have organized religious prayer services near the front line in the Luhansk region involving children. The goal is to create propaganda footage featuring soldiers and church symbols, while ignoring the real risks to the lives of minors, according to the National Resistance Center.
The National Resistance Center informs that Russia deliberately involved children from the temporarily occupied territories of the Luhansk region in religious events held in combat areas.
Children were systematically transported from settlements in the temporarily occupied territories to locations within range of artillery and drones and forced to take part in religious services and staged filming.
Children were used as living props: they were positioned next to soldiers, forced to stand throughout the services, and made to participate in filming. Some children were transported by buses through schools and so-called patriotic associations, without genuine parental consent.
Clergy under the occupation administration played a distinct and significant role in these events. They accompanied the children in the frontline zone, blessed the soldiers, and publicly justified the presence of minors at the front with rhetoric about "unity" and "service" to the army, becoming accomplices in the militarization of childhood.
Refusal to participate in such events is recorded by the occupation administrations and may have consequences for families, ranging from pressure on parents to problems at school.
According to the National Resistance Center, the occupation authorities are knowingly exposing children to deadly danger for the sake of an information effect, and present the war as a norm for minors, while propaganda footage from the front line featuring church symbols replaces real concern for their safety.
Return from occupation
Ukraine has brought back from the temporarily occupied territories another group of children aged 3 to 17, who Russian propaganda attempted to recruit from a very young age.
Earlier, another group of children and teenagers was also returned from these territories. According to Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has illegally deported more than 19,500 Ukrainian children.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that, through the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, more than 1,600 children have already been returned from Russia.
The mass deportation of Ukrainian children became one of the reasons why the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
