“I need to say this as soon as once more to Russian moms, particularly moms of conscripts. Don’t ship your youngsters to warfare out of the country,” Zelensky mentioned in a video deal with launched on Telegram.
“Test the place your son is. And in case you have the slightest suspicion that your son may very well be despatched to warfare in opposition to Ukraine, act instantly” to stop him being killed or captured, he mentioned.
“Ukraine by no means needed this horrible warfare. And Ukraine doesn’t need it. However it would defend itself as a lot as vital,” he added.
On Wednesday, Russia for the primary time acknowledged the presence of conscripts in Ukraine and introduced that quite a few them had been taken prisoner.
Moscow had beforehand claimed that solely skilled troopers had been preventing there.
The announcement got here as posts from moms with out information of their sons despatched to Ukraine multiplied on social networks.
Kyiv final week invited moms of Russian troopers captured on its territory to come back and choose their youngsters up.
The Ukrainian protection ministry revealed telephone numbers and an e mail by means of which they might get hold of details about them.
Kyiv claims to have taken dozens of prisoners for the reason that begin of the Russian assault.
Throughout the battle between Moscow and Chechen separatists within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s, many younger Russian conscripts had been despatched to the entrance, and a few had been taken prisoner.
In a motion that fueled anti-war protests in Russia on the time, girls mobilized to attempt to convey their sons again alive or convey their our bodies again — even going to Chechnya themselves.
