Ukraine's attorney general has made a stunning claim, accusing Russia of using Ukrainian children as human shields while regrouping its troops. Reports of Russia's brutality in places around the capital city of Kyiv have emerged, with witnesses in the newly liberated town of Bucha sharing their horrifying accounts of the invasion.
According to the Guardian, prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova is gathering a dossier of claims about Russia's use of local children to avoid fire when in retreat from around Kyiv and elsewhere in war-torn Ukraine. According to witnesses, coaches of children were placed by Russian forces in front of their tanks in the village of Novyi Bykiv, an area close to the encircled city of Chernihiv, which is 100 miles north of Kyiv.
Some allegations even suggested that Ukrainian children had been taken as hostages by Vladimir Putin's army in several conflict hot spots around Ukraine to ensure locals would not give the coordinates of the movements of the Russian forces to the Ukrainian troops.
Cases of Ukrainian children used as human shields recorded across Ukraine
Lyudmila Denisova, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, said that cases of Russians using children as cover had been recorded in Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Zaporizhzhia.
Colonel Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, who is the spokesman for Ukraine's ministry of defense, said that the country's attorney general was already investigating the aforementioned cases, but he was unable to provide further details about the investigation.
Motuzyanyk offered examples of Russia's horrific war tactics, saying that enemies have been using Ukrainian children as a living shield when moving their convoys and vehicles. Motuzyanyk added that Russian soldiers had used Ukrainian children as hostages, putting them on their trucks to protect their vehicles when moving.
Experts in Ukraine have warned that some of the towns vacated by Russian forces may have seen worse atrocities than those revealed in Bucha. CNN reported that Agence France-Presse captured shocking images of the carnage Bucha endured during five weeks of near-constant firefights on Saturday, the same day Ukraine declared the town liberated from the Russian army.
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158 Ukrainian children killed in Russian invasion
Locals claimed that Putin's forces killed Ukrainian children, carried out summary executions, and indulged in mass rapes during the Russian invasion. Russia was accused of genocide after its retreating forces left behind evidence of mass graves in the commuter town of Bucha, with some dead civilians having their hands tied behind their backs.
Tymofiy Mylovanov, an adviser to the Zelensky administration and a professor at Kyiv School of Economics, posted on Twitter that the war crimes in Brovary and Chernihiv directions might be more heinous than those witnessed in Bucha.
Among the examples Mylovanov gave were the mass rape and execution of young females, the execution of farmers working the land, and an account of a boy being burned alive. Ukrinform reported that 158 Ukrainian children had been killed during the Russian invasion, and more than 258 have been wounded thus far.
