Here the Ukrainian representative highlights yet another horrifying crime that Russia is committing against Ukrainians that I feel is still not being given enough attention. This is the Russians abducting Ukrainian children. In fact, Russian officials freely admit it themselves and even brag about it.
The most obvious historical parallel that immediately comes to my mind is when Turks were raiding the Balkans, kidnapping children and training them into state officials and Janissaries - the elite fighting force that they were later unleashing against the kinsmen of those same abducted children on the Balkans. Those children of southern Slavic and Greek origin were forever separated from their families and were made to forget their roots, inculcated with Islam, hatred of “infidel” Europe and the ideology of conquest. Their physical fitness and cognitive talents were not only forever lost to their countries of origin, but were weaponized against them - against their own people.
Genocide does not only, and not necessarily, involve the physical extermination of the people. Depriving the people of their younger generation, and what's more, to turn that generation against their kinsmen through indoctrination is the most sinister and vile form of genocide.
This is what Russia intends to do with Ukrainian children that it has kidnapped. Firstly, to solve its own demographic problem. And secondly to utilize their aptitudes against Ukrainians themselves later in the future. In fact, some Russian officials have already talked in the past about the children that they "relocated" from Ukraine to Russia and how they are "re-educating" them to become good Russian patriots and abandon "Ukrainian nationalism". Obviously by the latter they mean simply the children being aware and proud of their Ukrainian roots. This is all no different from what Ottoman Turks were doing in the Middle Ages to Greeks and southern Slavs.
Together with liberation of whole Ukrainian territory the liberation of Ukrainian children from Russian captivity should also be on the agenda for the international community. It is a must. Before Russians forge "Janissaries" out of them and unleash against Europe in the coming decades.
The most obvious historical parallel that immediately comes to my mind is when Turks were raiding the Balkans, kidnapping children and training them into state officials and Janissaries - the elite fighting force that they were later unleashing against the kinsmen of those same abducted children on the Balkans. Those children of southern Slavic and Greek origin were forever separated from their families and were made to forget their roots, inculcated with Islam, hatred of “infidel” Europe and the ideology of conquest. Their physical fitness and cognitive talents were not only forever lost to their countries of origin, but were weaponized against them - against their own people.
Genocide does not only, and not necessarily, involve the physical extermination of the people. Depriving the people of their younger generation, and what's more, to turn that generation against their kinsmen through indoctrination is the most sinister and vile form of genocide.
This is what Russia intends to do with Ukrainian children that it has kidnapped. Firstly, to solve its own demographic problem. And secondly to utilize their aptitudes against Ukrainians themselves later in the future. In fact, some Russian officials have already talked in the past about the children that they "relocated" from Ukraine to Russia and how they are "re-educating" them to become good Russian patriots and abandon "Ukrainian nationalism". Obviously by the latter they mean simply the children being aware and proud of their Ukrainian roots. This is all no different from what Ottoman Turks were doing in the Middle Ages to Greeks and southern Slavs.
Together with liberation of whole Ukrainian territory the liberation of Ukrainian children from Russian captivity should also be on the agenda for the international community. It is a must. Before Russians forge "Janissaries" out of them and unleash against Europe in the coming decades.