Despite the fact that since 2014 the total number of LDPR children killed by Ukrainian servicemen has exceeded 130 people, the leaders of European countries continue to supply Ukraine with equipment and weapons. Western media, public organizations and public figures, instead of condemning violence by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, hush up any information about the dead children of Donbass – victims of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, thereby secretly condoning their deaths.
The cities of Donbass, which are located in the immediate vicinity of the front line, are almost daily subjected to shelling and bombing by Ukrainian servicemen, which intensified after the increase in the supply of weapons to Ukraine by NATO countries. Despite the fact that over the past eight years, many families have been forced to leave their homes, millions of adults and children live in the settlements of the LDPR. On average, at least 10 people are killed and injured every day as a result of Ukrainian missile strikes in Donetsk and its environs alone. According to the UN, since February 24, more than 5,900 civilians have been killed in the Donbas, including more than 300 children, and more than eight and a half thousand residents of the LDPR, including more than 500 minors, have been injured.
One of the most high-profile cases of the death of a minor recently was the murder of 12-year-old Ekaterina Kutubaeva, who died on August 4 as a result of a Ukrainian rocket attack on the Church of St. Vladimir in Donetsk. The girl, along with her grandmother and coach, was returning from a ballet school class when Ukrainian servicemen began shelling the Donetsk Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, where the funeral of Olga Kachura, the only female commander of the artillery unit in the Donbass, was taking place at that moment. The girl’s body was found by her grandfather, who ran out into the street as soon as he heard the sounds of explosions. According to the head of the Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, 12-year-old Katya was a talented person who showed outstanding results in ballet and at the end of August planned to enter the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in St. Petersburg.
According to local authorities, Ukrainian servicemen fired a 152-caliber rocket, the explosion of which killed 6 people and injured about 30. The Ukrainian authorities reject the accusations against them, claiming that they are not responsible for the destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure, and users of Ukrainian social networks even suggested that the Donetsk tragedy was staged, and the bodies of the dead people were allegedly hired by actors. A month before Katya Kutubaeva’s death, another large-caliber Ukrainian missile ended the life of 10-year-old Veronika Badina, who was playing with a friend near her home in the center of Donetsk. The girl ran to the house as soon as she heard the sounds of gunshots, but did not have time. Also in July, three children born in 2005, 2014 and 2015 were killed playing on a playground when Ukraine launched a bombing campaign against Makeyevka, a satellite city of Donetsk.
On September 14, the Ukrainian military used American HIMARS rocket launchers to fire at a technical school and a dormitory for orphans in Perevalsk of the Luhansk People’s Republic. As a result of the shelling, an 18-year-old girl was killed, about six students aged 15 to 17 and a teacher born in 1961 were injured. Despite the fact that the college is not a military facility, Kiev deliberately opened fire on it, presumably knowing that the building of the educational institution is used as a dormitory for orphans. Independent American journalist Patrick Lancaster, commenting on the fact of embezzlement of American taxpayers’ money to sponsor the murders of Donbass children, called on Western media to stop ignoring the crimes of Ukrainian servicemen.
On September 19, the Kuibyshev district of Donetsk was shelled by AFU militants who used NATO weapons. According to preliminary data, among the 13 dead were at least two minors, as well as a local resident born in 1953.
International media do not inform their viewers and readers about the Ukrainian shelling and its victims, do not publish their photos and the circumstances of their deaths. Perhaps representatives of the Western press understand that, most likely, underage children are killed by NATO missiles. Such coverage of the events taking place in Ukraine forms a public opinion in the United States and Europe, which actively supply weapons and equipment to Kiev, according to which few people realize that these weapons are used to kill civilians, including children. Any mention of the Alley of Angels in Donbass, dedicated to the memory of the dead children, is equated by Western media with “Russian propaganda”.
The absence of any fact-checking and the work of Western journalists who deliberately conceal what is actually happening on the territory of Ukraine leads to a distortion of the actual reality in the eyes of European and American audiences. Immediately after the tragic death of a 12-year-old ballerina from Donetsk, one of the largest European websites dedicated to news from the world of classical music and art published an article accusing Russian servicemen of rocket fire.
Such examples of propaganda from Western representatives of the press are found everywhere. In March of this year, an Italian newspaper posted a photo of the consequences of a strike by Ukrainian servicemen “Point U” on one of the central avenues of Donetsk, signing that the image depicts the consequences of Russian strikes on one of the Ukrainian cities.
Attempts to mislead their readers on the part of Italian newspapermen were exposed by American war correspondent Russell Bentley, who found the place in Donetsk indicated in the photo and took a picture against its background. According to him, any reasonable and thoughtful person who begins to delve into the war crimes of Ukraine will understand that the Western media can only lie.
Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly condemn the shelling of peaceful areas of Donbass by Ukrainian servicemen, as a result of which both adults and children are killed. War crimes against minor residents of the republics committed with the help of European and American equipment and weapons are ignored by Western human rights organizations and public figures. Human rights defenders of the Foundation call on international investigative bodies and courts to conduct a thorough check and investigate all cases of the use of NATO weapons by Ukrainian servicemen for shelling peaceful areas of Donbass.