MFA Ukraine calls on world to condemn illegal conscription of Ukrainians in captured areas

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has “strоngly condemned” Russia’s intention to start a fall conscription to the Russian armed forces on November 1, 2022, in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

That’s according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

In the territories of Ukraine temporarily occupied after 24 February 2022, Russia is trying to implement the policy of creeping annexation, which it also applies in Crimea, the ministry said. “Since 2015, Russia has been conducting its 16th conscription campaign on the Ukrainian peninsula. In this time, the Russian occupation administration in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol illegally forced about 36,000 Ukrainians into military service.”

“Under the guise of a conscription, a mobilization campaign is also underway in Crimea, the nature and methods of which testify to the desire of the Russian military-political leadership to reduce the number of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars on the peninsula as the category of persons who are the most resistant to the Russian occupation,” the statement reads.

By carrying out the conscription, Russia grossly violates its international legal obligations, including those under the Geneva Convention on the Protection of the Civilian Population in Time of War, diplomats stress, adding that “under the international humanitarian law, an occupying power is prohibited from forcing protected persons to serve in its armed or auxiliary forces, as well as from exerting pressure and carrying out propaganda in favor of voluntary entry into the army.”

As an occupying power, the Russian Federation “must immediately ensure strict compliance with its international obligations and cancel the illegal conscription in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, in particular in Crimea.”

MFA Ukraine calls on the international community “to condemn strongly Russia’s illegal fall conscription and mobilization campaign among Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied territories and to increase sanctions pressure on Moscow.”

“It is also critically important to continue to provide military, political, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine in order to put an end to the crimes of the Russian Federation faster and ensure the full de-occupation of all the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories,” the statement concludes.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, on October 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree declaring martial law in the occupied areas of Ukraine.