The Ukrainian government denounced this Tuesday (18) that the Russian regime created military units made up of civilians forcibly recruited in occupied territories and Ukrainian prisoners of war captured since 2022. The accusation was presented by Dmytro Usov, secretary of the Coordination for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, during the conference Crimea Globalheld in Kiev.
According to the state agency UkrinformUsov stated that Moscow structured at least four military units controlled by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff. According to the secretary, these groups are the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Battalion, the Maksym Kryvonis Battalion, the Martyn Pushkar Detachment and the Oleksandr Matrosov Detachment, all made up of Ukrainians who are under Russian control.
According to the report published by UkrinformUkrainian coordination confirmed that 62 prisoners of war were possibly forced to sign contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense to serve in these units. Usov added that “there is even a soldier who returned to our custody after serving in the Maksym Kryvonis Battalion.”
a platforma United24 Media also echoed the complaint, citing Usov as stating that 46,327 Ukrainians were forcibly mobilized by Russia between February 2022 and July this year in the occupied regions, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea. According to the data presented, in Crimea alone 35,272 civilians were recruited by Russian forces, in addition to 5,368 in Sevastopol.
The allegations add to recent reports from Ukrainian authorities of coercion in other occupied regions, including cases in which Moscow-installed administrators pressure families to accept Russian passports under threat of losing custody of their children.
