Ukraine, on Wednesday, invited the worried mothers of captured Russian troops to come and collect their children in what seems to be an attempt to embarrass Russia.
The defence ministry said in a statement:
“A decision has been made to hand over captured Russian troops to their mothers if they come to collect them in Ukraine, in Kyiv.”
Some reports claim Ukrainian civilians are providing captured Russian soldiers with tea and food and are letting them call their mothers via video chat.
7 days after the Russia-Ukraine war started, Kyiv claims to have captured dozens of Russian men with videos of disarmed young men in uniform circulating online.
Ukraine has attempted to belittle Russia’s public support for the invasion by opening a telephone hotline for Russian parents to check if their children are among the dead or captured.
The defence military published some telephone numbers and an email address to provide information about captured Russians and invited mothers to Kyiv to collect their missing sons.
In a statement, the ministry said:
“You will be received and taken to Kyiv where your sons will be returned to you. Unlike Putin’s fascists, we Ukrainian are not waging war against mothers and their captured children.”
The Ukrainian forces have released some videos suspected to have been made under duress of the captured soldiers, condemning the Russian military conduct.
In one of the videos, a soldier says his commander refused to tell him where the unit was going.
“We acted like Nazis. We attacked people here, so they were forced to defend their territory,”
a soldier adds.
“I didn’t know we were going to Ukraine, I was tricked.”
Another said
Ukraine has set up a website and telegram channel called 200rf.com (a reference to “cargo 200,” a military code that means the transportation of dead soldiers) that has videos and photos of allegedly captured and killed Russian soldiers so that their families in Russia can identify the soldiers.
However, a message on the website on Wednesday said that it has been blocked in the Russian federation.
Many Russian families have been turning to the soldiers’ mothers committee NGO, which was previously set up to promote soldiers’ rights but since the start of the conflict has become a key contact.
The head of the organization, Svetlana Golub, told the papers that her phone hasn’t stopped ringing ever since.
In her own words:
“It is crazy. We are getting hundreds and hundreds of calls. It’s just a sea of tears. The families are being left completely in the dark. They had no idea that a military special operation was about to happen.”
Golub believes the death toll is more significant than Russian officials are presenting.
“From the many conversations I have been sent between soldiers and their families, I believe many Russians have already died,”
She said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky claims almost 6,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began last Thursday.
Even though Russia has admitted losses, they haven’t released an overall casualty number and the figure couldn’t be independently verified.
Since Russia started attacking Ukraine on February 24, Ukraine has suffered widespread damages and loss of life amid Russia’s major bombing campaign.
Related: What you should know about the Russia-Ukraine conflict 🔥
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