Putin's youth army planned to draft a million recruits before Ukraine invasion: 'Immoral'

This morning, Russian jets bombed cities in the western Ukraine, including Lviv, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, as the Kremlin slowly makes inroads into the country. Ukrainian officials had predicted an uptick in Russian shelling due to a period of clearer weather. Russia’s intended targets appear to primarily be airfields, with Lutsk’s nearby airfield having been hit by three strikes, according to eyewitnesses. 

Meanwhile Dnipro, a strategic city in the east of the country, was also hit by three strikes. 

Ukraine’s emergency services claimed that one strike hit a residential area in Dnipro, killing one person. 

However, Putin’s attack on Ukraine, along with his reported plan to seize the country’s capital, Kyiv, in the first two days of the invasion, has been a failure. 

The Russian forces have been thrown off course by fierce Ukrainian resistance, poor planning and a number of profound miscalculations, despite Putin’s significant expenditure on the military since he first became President in 1999.

Read More: ‘Frightening’ Ukraine war openly attacked on state TV

In 2021, Russia spent around £47million on the military, according to an LSE report, which is four percent of the country’s GDP.

One of Putin’s planned investments was allegedly a rapid expansion of his Yunarmia, a youth organisation supported and funded by Russia’s defence ministry, which aims to train future military personnel. 

The Yunarmia recruits children between the ages of eight and 18, teaching them military drills, how to handle Kalashnikov machine guns, wrestling and parachute jumping.

Reportedly, Putin was planning to amass one million young recruits ahead of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War 2 in 2020.

A controversial Russian children ombudsman, Anna Kuznetsova, was backing Putin’s move, which would have potentially seen the recruitment of up to 50,000 orphans. 

Novaya Gazeta newspaper claimed Ms Kuznetsova had asked her regional officials ‒ whose job is to safeguard the interest of children ‒ to play an active role in recruiting directly from orphanages for Yunarmia.

Critics argued that orphans would be unable to say no as they are under the state’s control.

Expert Alexander Gezalov was deeply critical of the alleged plan to recruit orphans.

Don’t Miss:
UK’s list of ‘probable nuclear targets’ unearthed[OPINION]
Putin’s ‘strongman’ image in tatters after leader humiliated[INSIGHT]
Russia’s nuclear threat dismissed by Ukraine MP: ‘Overstated'[ANALYSIS]

Speaking to MailOnline in 2018, he said: “Nobody is left to protect orphans if the children’s ombudsmen are pushing them into military units. 

“They should be dealing with completely different matters.”

During the Soviet era, orphans were also recruited to the military and KGB.

Psychologist Nikolay Scherbakov claimed: “This idea is unprofessional and immoral.”

The number of children recruited by Yunarmia is unclear, with different sources offering vastly different numbers.

Russian media claimed in 2018 that the Yunarmia were made up of 350,000 children, and the plan was to reportedly have 500,000 recruits by May 2019 and one million a year later.

The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHRPG) however claimed that around 4000 children were recruited into Russia’s youth army in 2021.

This brought the overall number of ‘soldiers’ in the organisation, according to KHRPG, to 29,000 children, who are divided into 874 units.

Russia’s defence ministry states that the children: “Take part in patriotic and educational events, aimed at retaining memory of the feats and military traditions of older generations; memorable events and dates in the history of Russia, the Black Sea Fleet and the Southern Military District.”

The Southern Military Districts was one of five Russian military districts that illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.