International
Putin tells angry Russian mothers to be ‘proud’ of loved ones
Russian mothers who believe their sons have been sent into war by Vladimir Putin as cannon fodder are lashing out at him, desperately seeking an end to the invasion. Russia’s Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers spoke to a Russian investigative news outlet saying many young boys have been pressured and even forced to sign contracts to join the Russian Military.
“Mothers are telling us that their sons have been calling them and saying they’re being forced to sign contracts…the parents who have gotten in touch have told us their sons were just taken by military officers, stamped, and that’ sit – now they’re contract soldiers” said Olga Larkina, the group’s director.
🔴Angry Russian mothers have accused Vladimir Putin of deploying their sons as "cannon fodder" in his invasion of Ukraine
Read more here👇https://t.co/G1kd8kcedA pic.twitter.com/Kd4fB6tG1v
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 7, 2022
Putin has disputed the claims and addressed the mothers directly. “I’d like to address the mothers, wives, sisters, brides and girlfriends of our soldiers and officers who are in battle now,” he said in a televised address, according to a translation from Russian.
“I know how worried you are for your loved ones…you can be proud of them just as the whole country is proud and feels for them.”
“We were all deceived, all deceived,” a woman shouted at Sergey Tsivilev, governor of the Kuzbass region in Siberia, on a video translated by the Telegraph and shared to social media. “They were sent there as cannon fodder. They are young. They were unprepared.”
Fox News reports:
Putin claimed Russian troops, which he sent in last month in a stalled bid to topple the government in Kyiv, have deployed for a defensive “special military operation.”
He also claimed that “conscripted soldiers” played no role in combat operations in Ukraine and vowed not to mobilize additional reserves.
However, just days into the invasion last month reports emerged that conscripted soldiers had been forced to sign military contracts and were cut off from communications with their families.
China has a vast network of covert police stations abroad, according to a recent report by Safeguard Defenders, an NGO that focuses on human rights violations in China and other Asian countries. These police stations serve consular functions, but are also used by China to crack down on what the CCP deems “illegal” activity of Chinese nationals abroad. The police stations include at least 38 run by the Fuzhou City police, and 22 run by the Qingtian City police. Cities housing these police stations include New York, Toronto (which has three stations), London (two), Paris (three), Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro, and Tokyo.
Key findings of the report are below.
“Persuaded to return”
According to China, China has “persuaded to return [to China]” 230,000 Chinese nationals living aboard from April 2021 to July 2022 alone to face charges of fraud and telecommunications fraud. A Yangxia police station set up in Mozambique, for example, persuaded a Chinese national to return to China after being accused of stealing money from his employer. Chinese authorities also put pressure on the accused family to convince the accused to surrender.
Roughly 54,000 Chinese nationals were persuaded to return from northern Myanmar alone, in the first nine months of 2021. In July 2022, the government of Wenchang City warned that its citizens living in northern Myanmar must check in with their local police stations or face multiple penalties including blocking their children from attending urban schools back in China. Similarly, in February 2022, the government of Liayang City stated that Chinese “illegally staying” in northern Myanmar must return or the bank accounts of their immediate family members could be frozen.
The Nine Forbidden Countries
China has claimed that nine countries contain serious levels of fraud and telecom fraud perpetrated by Chinese nationals. Since November 2021, China has declared that Chinese citizens living in these nine countries must return to China immediately unless they have an “emergency reason” or a “strict necessity” to travel or stay in those countries. Those countries are: Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, the UAE, and Turkey. However, the report questions whether these countries are truly awash in such fraud, as most of China’s oversees police stations are in the West, and only one of the nine countries (Cambodia) has such a police station. Chinese staying in the nine forbidden countries, as well as threats to family members as stated above, creates a “guilt-by-association” atmosphere intended to repatriate the Chinese nationals.
Conclusion
According to the report, Chinese police stations abroad serve to bypass “bilateral extradition treaties or other mechanisms of judicial cooperation” to cooperate with CCP-linked NGOs which effectively “[sets] up an alternative policing and judicial system within third countries.” Instead of using international judicial cooperation, which establishes due process, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial, China uses the above “persuade-to-return” methods and transnational police stations to circumvent international law and coerce Chinese nationals to return to China for trials. These policies show the power of China’s long-arm oppression over its own subjects.
You can follow Steve Postal on Twitter @HebraicMosaic
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Alberta Trafficante
March 9, 2022 at 9:23 am
Thank God that the American people have been spared Russian propaganda.Conscripted soldiers forced to sign a contract and communications being cut off and then to add insult to injury is Putin telling their mothers they should be proud of their sons! Thank you for letting me know. Gee. Here I thought the Ukranian men who weren’t allowed to evacuate with families not knowing where they are had it bad. Thanks again.
Jim Campbell
March 9, 2022 at 5:59 pm
Who cares? Putin’s an asshole, one of the mothers should assassinate him, the world would immediately be a safer place
Barb Nak
March 10, 2022 at 10:47 am
Bureaucrats are the same everywhere. This despicable invasion is wrong. War crimes are being committed..the Russian politicians sit back and watch the atrocities, Biden sits in his basement and does God knows what..who suffers, the Ukrainian people, the Russian people and we will soon be suffering, too.
Robin MMeeking
March 10, 2022 at 10:48 am
Putin imagined himself to be another Peter The Great. He’s turned out more like Ivan The Terrible. Maybe we should call him Putin The Baby Slayer.