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A Ukrainian teenager who Vladimir Putin's children's commissioner said had been rescued by Russian troops from a Moscow-occupied city has received a summons to join the Russian army after he turns 18, it has been reported.
The case of Bogdan Ermokhin comes as Moscow continues to face accusations that it has forcibly deported thousands of children from occupied areas of Ukraine since the start of its full-scale invasion.
In March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for President Putin and his children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for overseeing the unlawful deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia. Ukraine has said that over 19,000 children have been de facto abducted from the occupied territories and sent to Russia since February 2022.
The Geneva Convention for the Protection of Civilian Population in Time of War prohibits the forcible resettlement or deportation of civilians from occupied territory to an occupying country or a third country.
In April, Lvova-Belova addressed the case of Ermokhin who she said had been detained by Russian security forces at the border with Belarus as he was trying to return to Ukraine. This followed several unsuccessful attempts to get back into his country.
She said he was taken from Mariupol, where he was among a group of around 30 children who had been found in the basement of a building. He had been an orphan since the age of eight, Radio Free Europe reported.
Since then, Ermokhin has received a summons to attend a military commissariat in Moscow region on December 19, a month after he turns 18, his lawyer, Kateryna Bobrovska, told Ukrainian publication Graty.
Bobrovska said that she has appealed to Lvova-Belova and the Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova demanding Ermokhin be returned to his legal guardian, his older sister Valeria. Bobrovska said that Ermokhin was being intimidated and ordered to stay in Russia, despite his desire to return home.
On August 28, he was summoned to a meeting with Lvova-Belova during which he wrote a statement professing his wish to remain in Russia, which his lawyer said was made under duress upon threat of being admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
"I no longer have any doubts about Russia's plans. When Bogdan turns 18 in three weeks, he will already be of legal age, and most likely he will be sent to serve in the Russian army," Bobrovska told Graty.
In the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Russian authorities are enlisting children as young as 16 for military service, and conscription can take place at 18, according to the Ukrainian Center for National Resistance.
Lvova-Belova had previously said that children in Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine had been "voluntarily" sent by their parents to "sanatoriums" and health camps for "rest" and protection from hostilities.
Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment.
About the writer
Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more