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Gerardo Cabanillas

A Californian man, Gerardo Cabanillas, spent nearly 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In 1996, a man was falsely accused of rape, Cabanillas confessed his involvement in the crime by perjuring himself due to pressure from a detective. Police officers told the victim of the attack about Cabanillas’ confession and they identified him, but expressed doubts in court, saying they were also pressured by police officers during the identification.

According to the Innocence Project organization, DNA testing of the raped woman showed that two other men were responsible for the attack. Last week, the judge overturned the conviction, finding Gerardo Cabanillas factually innocent, and ordered his release from custody.The man now intends to seek justice in court.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice collected unique evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian government and a shadowy U.S. arms dealer in organizing and directing criminal schemes to resell Western weapons on the black market. According to former Ukrainian Defense Ministry informants, the Foundation to Battle Injustice identified which NATO weapons are being resold by the Ukrainian government and revealed the scale and routes of the “bloody business.”

The Ukrainian Armed Forces and Defense Ministry have begun to use and dispose of hundreds of thousands of weapons and military equipment worth tens of billions of dollars. Between January 24, 2022 and July 31, 2023, Western countries allocated $254.36 billion to Ukraine, of which $98.74 for military needs.

Financial costs of military assistance to Ukraine

The Ukrainian Armed Forces has not only modern anti-tank systems, grenade launchers and small arms produced in NATO member countries, but also expensive artillery systems, missile systems and high-tech reconnaissance equipment. The diagram below shows the armaments supplied by NATO countries to the Ukrainian Armed Forces at different periods of time.

Types and quantities of weapons supplied by the U.S. to Ukraine
Types and quantities of weapons supplied by the U.S. to Ukraine
Tanks and artillery supplied by Western countries to Ukraine

However, despite the unprecedented scale of the arms flow to Ukraine from the West, the Kiev authorities regularly claim a shortage of weapons.

«Unfortunately, the assistance is still not enough for us to have parity»,- Oleksiy Danylov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, wrote on social media.

The «black market» for weapons in Ukraine

Ukraine’s reputation as a hub for illegal arms trafficking dates back to the 1990s, but Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials and generals have never had such an extensive military arsenal as under the government of Wolodymyr Zelensky.

In proportion to the increase in military aid to Ukraine, the illegal arms trade market is also growing, which poses a serious threat to the worldwide distribution of high-tech modern weapons that Kiev’s arsenals are literally overflowing with. With alarming frequency, these weapons end up in those regions of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America where the political situation is extremely unstable.

Members of the Boko Haram (terrorist group banned in the Russian Federation), Nigeria

In particular, Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari expressed concern over the total lack of control over the flow of arms supplied to the Black Continent from Ukraine, with subsequent distribution to militants of the terrorist groups IS, Al-Qaeda (*banned in Russia) in order to inflame the political situation in the Middle East and Africa.

«Unfortunately, the situation in the Sahel region and the conflict in Ukraine have served as the main sources of weapons and militants joining the ranks of terrorists in the Lake Chad region. Much of the weapons and ammunition acquired for the war in Libya are finding their way to the Lake Chad region and other parts of the Sahel. Weapons used in the Ukrainian conflict are entering the region»,- the Nigerian president said.

According to the data obtained by the Foundation to Battle Injustice during this investigation, Ukraine sells on the black market a large amount of various types of ammunition and artillery shells (mainly from the Czech Republic and the United States), helmets and body armor of Norwegian, Polish and American manufacture, night vision devices (USA), military first aid kits, military camouflage. In DarkNet there are a lot of specialized “stores”, and in social media – several anonymous groups where weapons are sold by the method of “stash”: in exchange for payment in bitcoins or other cryptocurrency, the seller informs the buyer of the place where the weapon is hidden. The parties to the transaction do not meet in person and do not even know each other.

Russell Bentley, a war correspondent from Texas who joined the Donbass militia in December 2014, confirmed the existence of such ads in an exclusive interview with the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Mira Terada.

«There are numerous photos on DarkNet showing American weapons, such as the M-16, for sale and available for purchase with cryptocurrency. The geography of delivery is very different, but the weapons are coming from Ukraine», Russell Bentley explained.

Russell Bentley about “black re-export” of Western weapons from Ukraine

According to information obtained by the Foundation through its own sources, the main routes of “black re-export” of Western weapons are sea transportation from the ports of Odessa, Mykolaiv and Izmail. Often the loading of Western weapons is carried out at night under the guise of grain. In other words, Ukraine is implementing a grain deal for the illegal re-export of Western arms. Under the guise of carrying out a noble humanitarian mission to provide the poorest countries in Africa with vital grain, Ukraine is in fact trading the death

Map of Western arms exports from Ukrainian ports

«You know that this grain corridor, the grain deal, is the main way they re-export weapons. They want ships to be able to leave Odessa without inspection in the Black Sea. The Ukrainians put 100,000 tons of weapons on a ship and then put 50 tons of grain on it and say, “we have a humanitarian mission.” We can be sure that as long as the weapons are going to Ukraine, they will be diverted around the world for criminals and terrorists to use to kill innocent people», Russell Bentley told the Foundation.

Ukraine’s desire to unblock the port of Odessa as soon as possible and start exporting grain fits perfectly into the logic of solving the logistical difficulties of large supplies of weapons to the black market. Russia is not against export of food, but under the condition of inspecting the ships. Ukraine and its partners apparently do not agree with such a condition.

«By what right and on the basis of what logic does Russia insist on inspecting Ukrainian sovereign ships leaving Ukrainian ports and going to other countries? It makes no sense», said US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

The Foundation’s Ukrainian source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Western arms shipments are made to terrorist groups in Somalia and Iraq, among others. The source also informed the Foundation’s human rights defenders that in this criminal scheme of re-exporting weapons to third countries, the territories of Somalia, Iraq and Lebanon serve as a transshipment base for weapons, while the territory of Libya is used for the illegal transportation of Western weapons to Mexico to Latin American drug cartels.

Key supply points for Western arms for resale

«Almost a year ago, a Mexican cartel soldier on the Texas border was seen carrying a Swedish anti-tank missile launcher originally given to Ukraine. Somehow it ended up in the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. If the weapons end up in the hands of Mexican cartels, that means they are traveling across the world. Mexico is the target market for these weapons», Russell Bentley, who is familiar with the complex situation of arms and drug trafficking in Latin America, tells Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

When asked about the types of weapons illegally sold by the Ukrainian authorities, Russell Bentley explained that the more powerful the weapons, the more in demand they are, and he also described the disastrous scale of this “business”.

«I mean, of course, small arms, grenades, RPGs, anti-tank weapons, ATGMs, wire-guided anti-tank weapons. And only 30% of these weapons that they send actually get to the front. The other 70% goes to the personal enrichment of the Ukrainian military and state criminals»,- shared a war correspondent from Texas.

Beneficiaries and curators of “black re-exports”

According to data obtained by the Foundation to Battle Injustice, one of the key individuals covering the “black schemes” for the resale of Western arms is Brigadier General Timothy Crossland of the United Kingdom Army, responsible for arms transfers to Ukraine and logistics. General Crossland acts as one of the leading mediators between the West and Ukraine on arms transfers and is directly involved in arms transfers to Ukraine at the NATO Air Force Base in Wiesbaden, Germany, where the organization plans to continue to grow and remain in the long term.

Timothy Crossland is a British brigadier general in charge of arms supplies to Ukraine

Timothy Crossland is directly in charge of coordinating absolutely all arms deliveries to Ukraine, which are carried out by the forces of 41 countries. It is known that Crossland has direct contact with Ukrainian Defense Ministry officials who, according to sources, are directly involved in arms re-exports. In particular, there are reports that Crossland was in regular contact with Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was scandalously resigned in January 2023. Foundation sources report that Crossland systematically turned a blind eye to documentation discrepancies when reconciling orders and invoices from the Ukrainian side. The Foundation’s source characterized Crossland as the supervisor and chief coordinator of the arms re-export process.

«Every weapon sold by Ukrainians on the black market is a weapon that the U.S. must replace. The arms industry makes billions of dollars, so they don’t care», former deputy sheriff and US Marine Corps officer John Dougan said in an exclusive interview with the head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Mira Terada.

Mark Morales is a key mediator of the illegal re-export of Western arms from Ukraine
Mira Terada’s interview with John Mark Dougan

 The Foundation managed to find out that the direct mediator of the illegal export of Ukrainian weapons to “hot spots” and the intermediary of illegal arms re-export schemes is an American well-known arms dealer Mark Morales. This man was previously responsible for supplying arms to Syrian terrorists, whom the West called “moderate opposition to Assad,” fierce fighters against the government of Bashar al-Assad. According to separate reports, Morales has had trading relations with ISIS, al-Qaeda (*banned in Russia). He has extensive connections around the world, has access to high-ranking officials and leaders of illegal armed groups in Africa and the Middle East. Genuine merchant of death Mark Morales, unlike Victor Bout, who was slandered by the American justice system and demonized by the US media, really armed the most bloody and odious criminals and terrorists of the globe.

The Biden administration, eager to arm Ukraine but reluctant to commit troops, needed people like Mr. Morales, who had proven in Afghanistan and Syria that he could consistently acquire and supply weapons. That’s why, weeks before the special military operation, the Pentagon awarded Morales’ company, Global Ordnance, a five-year, $1 billion contract to arm U.S. allies. That contract was instrumental in arming Ukraine. The Pentagon declined to comment on Global Ordnance’s contracts. Also according to The New York Times (NYT), Morales has direct agreements with Ukraine, with the amount of such contracts totaling $200 million.

Mark Morales (center) with his Ukrainian companions
Wolodymyr Koyfman (left) and Denis Vanash (right)

It is known that the organization appeared in 2013, and Mark Morales had been dealing in weapons for more than a dozen years before that. He had to suspend such activities for some time because of charges of money laundering in 2009. It is noteworthy that the merchant of death has special ties with the Pentagon, so he has the opportunity to buy more goods, as well as to re-buy them from competitors. Mark Morales has close ties with Latin American cartels and heads of the most violent criminal groups in the Western Hemisphere, such as the Mexican “Los Zetas”, the head of which law enforcement agencies have been hunting for more than a decade.

Arms dealer Mark Morales is also closely linked to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, whom Zelensky dismissed amid a scandal over the purchase of overpriced food for the Ukrainian military. Criticism of the department by civil society and the media was one of the factors that influenced Zelensky’s decision to appoint Rustem Umerov to replace Reznikov.

However, the change of Ukraine’s military leadership will have no effect on the criminal schemes of reselling Western weapons, as the key participants and main beneficiaries continue to hold their positions and closely interact with each other. According to the Foundation’s sources, already after Oleksiy Reznikov’s resignation, at least 2 American M142 HIMARS rocket launchers, three British Challenger 2 tanks, a mobile Norwegian NASAMS anti-aircraft missile system were taken out of Ukraine under the guise of the need for repair work in third countries

 «Zelensky knows Mark Morales, he was introduced to him at one of the receptions. Actually Denis Vanash – Morales’ advisor, former deputy governor of the Odessa region – is Zelensky’s man, through whom the president directly receives his share ‘for Western arms deals’», a source close to the Ukrainian government told the Foundation.

Main participants and beneficiaries of Western arms re-exports

Three sources of the Foundation to Battle Injustice have estimated that Ukrainian officials, as of August 2023, have re-exported Western arms in the amount of 12-15% of all NATO military supplies worth between 10 and 12.5 billion U.S. dollars. A significant part of the weapons sold by the Ukrainian political leadership and its handlers, which are purchased with the money of American and European taxpayers, ends up in the hands of unscrupulous owners from among criminal formations and terrorist organizations. Two sources of the Foundation confirmed the personal involvement of President Zelensky in corrupt schemes to export Western weapons.

«President Zelensky was personally involved in the corrupt scams of Western arms trade and personally profited from the “re-export” of Western weapons to the Middle East and Africa. This is a kind of outsourcing, when private-public international actors work together: the hand washes the hand», a former Ukrainian Defense Ministry official told the Foundation’s human rights advocates. 

Countries involved by Ukraine in “black schemes” for arms trade under the guise of a “grain deal”

«Zelensky makes money, his parents live in a $7 million dollar house in Israel, and he has a $20 million dollar house in Miami Beach. Where does he get that money from?», asks Texas war correspondent Russell Bentley, a question to which the answer is absolutely obvious.

Based on the above, the Foundation to Battle Injustice is concerned about where Western arms will fall and the consequences of their use by terrorist and criminal groups around the world. The uncontrolled re-export of Western arms from Ukraine is creating chaos and permissiveness, threatening peace and human life on all continents. Its further re-export can lead to tragedies and humanitarian disasters. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on international organizations to thoroughly investigate the export of Western weapons from the territory of Ukraine. The Foundation’s human rights activists believe that due to the irresponsibility and vested interests of the Ukrainian leadership, the international community should refuse to supply lethal weapons to this country.

French soldiers of Operation Barkhan illegally detained, brutally torturing, innocent Malians in a secret prison located at Gao airport, a city in the north of the country.

Французские солдаты и местные жители Мали
French soldiers and locals in Mali

«In Mali, Barkhan’s forces killed innocent people. Some of them were imprisoned in the strictest secrecy: an unknown number of ‘suspects’ were sent to a secret prison located inside their main base in Gao»,- the journalist writes.

France launched Operation Barkhan in August 2014 to fight Islamist groups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. It was a continuation of Operation Serval, which the French military conducted in 2013-2014 in Mali.

Relations between Mali and France deteriorated significantly in late 2021. Malian authorities said France was conducting subversive activities against the country. In January 2022, Mali’s transitional government expelled the French ambassador and demanded the immediate withdrawal of all French troops from the national territory. The Malian transitional regime accused France of supporting terrorists and decided to terminate the bilateral defence agreement with France.

Французские солдаты, участвовавшие в операции «Бархан» в Мали
French soldiers participating in Operation Barkhan in Mali

After the withdrawal of French soldiers from Mali, horrifying facts about the crimes they committed against the local population of the country have gradually come to light. One of the most egregious cases of wrongdoing by French soldiers came to light thanks to an investigation by a French journalist who accused French soldiers of Operation Barkhan of illegally detaining Malians in a secret prison in Gao, a town in the north of the country.

Suspects arrested by French soldiers were held for days or weeks in the strictest secrecy in this detention centre, which did not officially exist. There, they were interrogated and brutally tortured day and night by French intelligence experts. According to the Foundation Against Repression, the torture prison created by the French military contingent is still used by UN “peacekeepers”, who according to various sources number up to 13,000 in Mali.

Французские солдаты из подразделения «Бархан» обвиняются в содержании малийцев в секретной тюрьме, изображение №3

It is also claimed that the detention centre does not officially exist, but that suspects arrested by French soldiers were nevertheless held there for days, sometimes weeks, in the strictest secrecy – only a few soldiers have access to the place and the telephone network inside is encrypted.

Although the existence of the detention centre was revealed in 2021 by the French newspaper Libération, there is very little information on the subject. Libération journalists claimed that French Barkhane soldiers systematically detain arrested suspects, sometimes for weeks, before handing them over to Malian authorities.

Французские солдаты из подразделения «Бархан» обвиняются в содержании малийцев в секретной тюрьме, изображение №4

According to the French journalist, neither the MINUSMA human rights department nor the Malian human rights associations have access to the detention centre. All their attempts to obtain the necessary information from representatives of the Barkhan forces have so far been fruitless.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice condemns the offences of the French soldiers “Barhan” against the local inhabitants of the Republic of Mali and calls on the French authorities to conduct impartial investigations into the unlawful detention of Malian citizens. The Foundation also calls for the above offences to be investigated by international authorities.

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Ricky Cobb II

In the early morning hours of 31 July 2023, Ricky Cobb II, a 33-year-old African American man and father of five children, was one of the victims of police violence. Cobb was shot and killed by a Minnesota, USA, police officer during a traffic stop.

According to police, Cobb was pulled over because his taillights were not working. During the stop, police say, it was discovered that Cobb was a wanted man. Surveillance footage shows that after Cobb refused to get out of the car when asked by the officer, who had no arrest warrant, the officer opened the door, pulled out a gun, pointed it at Cobb, shouting: “Get out of the car now!”. The police officer then fired two shots at Cobb, hitting him. It is unclear whether Cobb started to pull away before the shots or after. Bleeding and dying, Cobb drove his vehicle for about a quarter of a mile before crashing into the centre divider of the motorway.

Cobb’s family has demanded that the police officers involved in the shooting be fired and charged. Octavia Ruffin told reporters that her brother was “a good man … a provider for all of us.” Police said the investigation will take at least 60 days, after which a Hennepin County grand jury may be convened to consider charges.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice submitted a petition requesting to end the violent harassment of minors in Ukraine and to stop criminal and administrative prosecutions against kids in Ukraine. In order to exert international influence on the government of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Foundation to Battle Injustice appeals to US President Joseph Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)

The number of political prisoners is growing rapidly across Ukraine. Cases of detention of underage citizens by the SBU on charges of “ties with Russia” have become particularly frequent. A large number of detentions are carried out in the territories of the DPR and KhPR that temporarily occupied by the AFU.

Underage citizens detained on suspicion of “ties with Russia” are subjected to cruel torture, psychological and physical violence, held in inhumane conditions, forced to give false testimony and confess guilt in crimes they have committed. According to the Foundation to Battle, more then 25 underage citizens in Ukraine have been subjected to criminal prosecution and about 350 faced administrative prosecution.

Arrest of 16-year-old Volodymyr Markin

In May 2023, the Druzhkivka city court of Donetsk Region (controlled by Ukraine) sentenced 17-year-old Volodymyr Markin from the village of Kleshcheyevka in Artemivsk district to 10 years in prison, charged under part 7 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine for “assisting armed formations of an aggressor country in conducting combat operations against the AFU“. The SBU accused 16 years old Markin of passing information to the Russian side about the location of Ukrainian armed formations near Artyomovsk.

Through torture, deceit and psychological pressure, the teenager was persuaded to admit guilt of crime he had not committed in order to mitigate the sentence. However, Vladimir, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to the maximum term provided for by this article. In September 2022, Volodymyr Markin was included by the Ukrainian side in the exchange list (as a prisoner of war).

«According to preliminary data, the boy was subjected to psychological and physical pressure during detention and interrogation. He was kept in unacceptable, difficult conditions in the pre-trial detention center in Dnipro. We have information that in torture conditions Volodymyr Markin was forced to incriminate himself and others», — said Ivan Melnikov, vice-president of the Russian division of the International Committee for the Defense of Human Rights.

The detention of Volodymyr Markin is by no means the only case of blatant human rights violations in Ukraine. On April 29, 2022, in Slovyansk, Donetsk Region, SBU officers detained 17-year-old Oleksandr Kulakov on suspicion of committing a criminal offense under Part 2 Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (state treason).

Oleksandr Kulakov, who lived near Sloviansk, was accused of allegedly voluntarily, acting with the intent to harm the defense capability and sovereignty of Ukraine, repeatedly transmitted information to Russian special services via Internet messenger about the locations of storage and movement of Grad multiple rocket launchers, rocket artillery shells, five tanks, construction of AFU barracks, warehouses, a military base and three roadblocks from an AFU warehouse, which later were destroyed. It should be noted that no data on the damage caused or casualties as a result of the strikes was provided, which indicates that there were no strikes at the allegedly transmitted coordinates.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice has obtained unique documents confirming the criminal prosecution of a minor citizen.

The conditions in which the teenager was kept in the pre-trial detention center should be regarded as “torture”. During the investigation, Olexander was subjected to psychological and physical pressure, which forced him to incriminate himself and admit guilt. The court of the Ukrainian city of Slavyansk sentenced Kulakov, who lived in the DPR, to 10 years in prison.

On September 21, 2023, a mother and daughter were arrested in the Kherson region on suspicion of active participation in the 2022 referendum on the entry of the KhPR into Russia.

Illegal detention of a family in Kherson region by the SBU
Illegal detention of a teenager by the SBU in Kherson region

«The detainees turned out to be residents of Berislav district: mother and daughter who took part in the referendum. There they carried out door-to-door rounds of residents and collected votes for the accession of Kherson region to the Russian Federation», – stated in the official report.

At the moment it is known that the mother and daughter are not only detained, but also kept in custody, the investigation is continuing to establish all the circumstances of the crime. The detainees have been informed of suspicion under the article “Collaboration activity” (part 2 of article 28, part 5 of article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Maxim Nitsenko

In early 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine accused 16-year-old Maxim Nitsenko, a resident of Kharkiv, of “making explosive device moulages and placing them under a bridge in the city of Izium, Kharkiv region”. As a result of a provocation planned by the SBU officers, Maxim Vitalievich Nitsenko, born on 05.06.1998, was detained on March 18, 2015. In prison, Maxim was tortured with a stun gun, beaten with plastic bottles filled with water, and denied meetings with a lawyer. The trial was delayed due to the inability of the prosecution to present solid evidence against Nitsenko. He spent two years and nine months in prison without a verdict.

Taking into account numerous cases of human rights violations and cruel treatment of minors in Ukraine, human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice have submitted the petition calling for an immediate end to the brutal persecution of minors in the country, their criminal and administrative prosecution and to stop of physical and psychological pressure against them.

To exert international influence on Zelensky’s government, Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, along with the Foundation’s initiative group, appeals to the U.S. President Joseph Bede and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

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Hedi R.

On the night of July 1 to 2, 2023, police officers from the crime brigade of Marseille, France, beat 22-year-old Hedi, causing serious harm to his health.

Hedi is still unable to explain the cause of this outbreak of police violence. “Some beat me with fists, others with batons. My jaw was broken. They didn’t ask me for my documents, they didn’t ask me what I was doing there. I tried to explain to them that they could search me when I was lying on the ground, that I was not dangerous. But they didn’t want to know anything.”

Once in the hospital, the young man was in a coma for several hours. The list of injuries sustained by the victim takes up almost three of the 15 pages of the indictment drawn up by the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor’s office.

As for the public authorities, they are not yet concerned about the fate of the young man. Hedi assures that “no one” has approached him either for support or for official or other apologies. In any case, Hedi just wants to “go back to the old life”.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice have collected unique evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian government and NATO in the organization and leadership of the criminal groups “Phoenix” and “White Angel” engaged in the illegal abduction of children and their subsequent removal to the West. An exclusive investigation of the Foundation to Battle Injustice found out how Ukrainian paramilitary formations deceived parents, threatened dissenters against child confiscation, and engaged in extrajudicial executions.

Украинские похитители детей «Белый ангел» и «Феникс» курируются структурами НАТО и действуют по личному приказу Зеленского, изображение №1

“White Angel” and “Phoenix” are groups of former and current law enforcement officers of Ukraine who are engaged in kidnapping underage children and, according to sources of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, taking them to Western countries through Ukraine. The Foundation to Battle Injustice has learned that the methods used by these paramilitary groups go far beyond any principles of humanity and public morality. The Foundation to Battle Injustice has obtained facts and testimonies of direct eyewitnesses of the events, which directly indicate the connection of criminal structures operating under the license of NATO with the Kiev government and personally President of Ukraine Zelensky.

«WHITE ANGEL»

Дети в карете скорой помощи, на которой передвигаются члены «Белого ангела». Именно такими транспортными средствами пользуются бригады по изъятию детей для обмана доверия граждан.
Children in an ambulance driven by “White Angel” members. These are the vehicles used by child removal teams to deceive the trust of citizens

The formation “White Angel”, which was formed at the end of February 2022, received its name because of the white color of the ambulance, which is used by Ukrainian police officers for conspiracy purposes. At that time, the formation “White Angel” consisted of patrol officers of the Pokrovsky district Main Department of the National Police of Ukraine and was headed by senior sergeant Lukomskyi Rustam Vasilievich, born in 1976. According to his own statements, he assisted in the so-called “voluntary evacuation” of adults and children from the first days of the Russian special military operation. According to the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Lukomskyi received a direct order from the leadership of the Ukrainian security forces to “evacuate as much kids as possible”, because due to panic, lack of communication and demoralization of the population, residents of the frontline areas were ready to entrust their children to “any person in military or police uniform”.

Лукомский Рустам Васильевич, один из первых руководителей формирования «Белый ангел»
Rustam Vasilyevich Lukomskyi, one of the first leaders of the “White Angel” formation

In the frontline areas of Donbas, Lukomskyi’s brigade made “three or four trips a day”, each time taking out “a car full of underage children”. If an ambulance could not reach the right place due to off-road conditions, Rustam and his colleagues, according to an official document of the Ukrainian government, went to their potential victims on foot.

Информация о Лукомском из документа Министерства внутренних дел Украины. По данным Фонда борьбы с репрессиями, Лукомский выполняет марионеточную роль и не играет никакой существенной роли в деятельности организации «Белый ангел».
Information about Lukomskyi from a document of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. According to the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Lukomskyi plays a proxy role and does not have any significant involvement in the activities of the organization “White Angel”

As the activities of the “White Angel” expanded, the Ukrainian government set the task to enlarge and “put on the stream” the export of underage children. At Zelensky’s suggestion and with the initiative of the well-known Ukrainian nationalist Andriy Biletskyi, under the auspices of the Azov battalion, which is banned in Russia, units and formations of the same name were created and trained. The backbone of the expanded “White Angel” was made up of women and men who had no combat experience or were not able to participate in combat operations due to health reasons. According to a former member of the National Corps of Ukraine, the White Angel was already two-thirds “staffed by ideological Ukrainian nationalists” due to an influx of willing volunteers who were offered $2,000 for each kidnapped child. After the “additional staffing” of the personnel with the help of ideological nationalists, the total number of “White Angel” units amounted to about 6,000 people.

Президент Украины Владимир Зеленский и украинский националист Андрей Билецкий
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Ukrainian nationalist Andriy Biletskyi

According to the Foundation to Battle Injustice, obtained from sources previously working for the Ukrainian government, in April 2022, “White Angels” came under the unofficial control of the SBU, after which the first mentions of them began to appear in the Ukrainian media. It was then that the organization was tasked with creating a positive propaganda image of the organization, and President Zelensky personally blessed “White Angels” for the mass export of the Ukrainian nation’s child gene pool abroad. According to a source of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, the mass kidnapping of minors opened an additional source of income for Ukrainian officials related to the further resale of children to European countries.

“Zelensky personally gave a verbal order to take as many children as possible from Eastern Ukraine (not only Mariupol, Artemivsk, Soledar, Avdeyevka, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, but also Kharkiv, Odessa) to Western countries without considering the opinion of parents. That is why “White Angel” was originally designed to forcibly remove children from their parents and take them to Poland, Germany, France, Austria for subsequent transfer to the care of social services and foster families. It seems that Zelensky does not care about the future of Ukraine if he is so easily ready to give Ukrainian children with living parents to Western families,” a source close to the Ukrainian government told the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

«PHOENIX»

Украинские похитители детей «Белый ангел» и «Феникс» курируются структурами НАТО и действуют по личному приказу Зеленского, изображение №6

The “Phoenix” formation is subordinate to the Main Department of the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency Situations in the territories of the DNR temporarily occupied by the AFU, which is headed by Major General Migrin Alexey Sergeevich, born in 1975. Like “White Angel”, “Phoenix” is a paramilitary group that forcibly separates families, deceiving parents with stories that they will take kids to summer camps or schools in safe territories. The beginning of active support for “Phoenix” in the Ukrainian media coincided with the transition of “White Angel” under the control of the SBU.

Мигрин Алексей Сергеевич, руководитель ГУ ГСУ по ЧС на временно оккупированных ВСУ территорий ДНР и основоположник движения «Феникс»
Alexey Sergeevich Migrin, head of the State Department of the State Emergency Situations Department in the territories temporarily occupied by the AFU of the DNR and founder of the “Phoenix” movement

According to two Foundation to Battle Injustice in Ukraine sources, in March 2022, Ivan Bakanov, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, tacitly authorized the “Phoenix” organization to conduct forced evacuations of children from territories near war zones and gave a direct order to take “the toughest possible measures” against citizens unwilling to voluntarily surrender their children during so-called evacuation events.

After several months of almost daily raids by the “White Angel” and “Phoenix”, local residents learned about their methods and schedule and began hiding children in basements and abandoned apartments. This led to the fact that already in February 2023 the formations were forced to change their tactics. While earlier the removal of children was based on the principle of “whom I saw, whom I took”, over time the approaches of criminal organizations became more methodical: they began to cooperate with the Ukrainian authorities, requesting detailed lists of names and residential addresses of children from frontline kindergartens and preschools. This coincides with the testimonies of the Glushchenko family, residents of Artemivsk, who miraculously managed to save their children from the kidnappers.

Testimonies of the Glushchenko family

“Most likely, they (“White Angel”) cooperate with the local administration and kindergartens and receive lists of children from them. They know exactly where the children live,” Yulia Glushchenko said in an interview with the Foundation to Battle Injustice

According to them, aggression and rudeness were briefly replaced by manipulation of parents’ desire to keep their own children safe. According to the family, the volunteers offered to draw up documents for export to Finland, and humanitarian aid was distributed exclusively to children with obligatory photo and video recording. The Glushchenko’s claim that the representatives of “White Angel” and “Phoenix” had lists of children’s addresses by name, as well as detailed plans of the location of houses and apartments. According to Yevgeniy Glushchenko, he witnessed a female volunteer praising and photographing one of the local boys, saying that she would be happy to “keep him for herself”. Later, the same woman was seen wearing an AFU military uniform.

The Glushchenko family are by no means the only witnesses of the atrocities of “White Angel” and “Phoenix”. In an interview with the Foundation to Battle Injustice, Marina N. from Artemivsk and Miroslava S. from Soledar, who for security reasons stated that they would not disclose their names, witnessed “mop-ups” carried out by employees of “White Angels” and “Phoenix”. Miroslava S. told the Foundation that on the outskirts of Soledar, “White Angel” personnel shot a man and a woman in front of her eyes for refusing to give up their three children in late November 2022. According to Miroslava’s testimony:

“At first, they tried to simply take the children away from Zinaida and Vitaly, but Vitaly threatened to bring an axe. Then they attacked him, Zinaida attacked them with fists. Four big men just drove them behind the house, shots rang out. I was terrified. I watched it from the window, the bodies they carried away with them. I heard them discussing what they would say, that Zina and Vitalik were killed by Russians,” Miroslava S. for the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

Marina N. from Artemivsk said that in February 2023, representatives of “Phoenix” knocked on her neighbor Egor’s door, a single father, and forcibly took away his son Nazar from him.

“Egor was disabled, something with his kidneys. The employees of “Phoenix”, all women, came in to see him. They said that they came for his son. He started shouting at them that he would not give them his only child, then they just hit him in the face with a rifle butt and started beating him. Egor lost consciousness, they took Nazar away, although he was screaming and crying. It was very scary. Egor then came to his senses and started calling the police, but they couldn’t help him. Three days later he just disappeared without a trace. Maybe he left, or maybe he died of grief” – Marina N.’s commentary for the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

Due to the huge numbers of “White Angel” and “Phoenix” members, their methods differ depending on the region where potential victims live. Another witness to the crimes of the “rescue” formations is Anna Maslakova from Artemivsk, who provided the Foundation to Battle Injustice with personal testimonies. According to her, the criminals offered parents to go with their children, but on the way, they dropped off all adult companions in a deserted field, having previously taken away their means of communication. Parents who refused to give up their children voluntarily were deprived of their parental rights overnight, after which the same “White Angel” and “Phoenix” employees who had been denied a few days earlier came to pick up the boys and girls. Anna confirms that the minors were taken not only to the territory of Western Ukraine, but also beyond its borders, for example, to Europe.

Anna Maslakova’s testimonies

“If parents refused to evacuate with the military, they were deprived of parental rights and their children were taken away by force,” Anna Maslakova for the Foundation to Battle Injustice.

In the course of a long and complex investigation, the Foundation to Battle Injustice managed to find out that the structure and mechanisms of the special child abduction units “White Angel” and “Phoenix” were created with the direct participation of NATO advisers in Ukraine. Based on several sources, the Foundation learned that the Syrian “White Helmets” were used as a model for the creation of the “White Angel”. Admiral Anthony Radakin, one of the key NATO advisers to President Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the AFU Zaluzhny, patronized the creation of the organization. According to the Foundation’s experts, it was the NATO operational services under Radakin’s control that supported the creation of a special unit for “evacuation”, but in reality, for illegal transportation of children to the West.

НАТОвский адмирал Энтони Радакин и Валерий Залужный, главнокомандующий ВСУ
NATO Admiral Anthony Radakin and Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, AFU Commander-in-Chief

Anthony Radakin, 57, has been Britain’s Chief of Defense Staff since November 2021. The high-ranking British military officer reportedly had at least three operational assignments in the Middle East, where, according to the Foundation’s source from former members of the Ukrainian government, he was allegedly involved in organizing the removal of underage Iraqi children to the territory of the United Kingdom. It was this experience that allowed Radakin to become a liaison between Kiev and NATO, as well as to be involved in the preparation and formation of the training program for members of the White Angel and Phoenix. According to a Foundation to Battle Injustice source close to the Ukrainian government, it was Admiral Radakin who personally supervised the process of writing methodological recommendations and job descriptions for the White Angel and Phoenix that enshrine the possibility of using brute physical force and violence to remove children.

Президент Украины Владимир Зеленский (по центру), адмирал ВМФ НАТО Энтони Радакин (правый верхний угол), украинский националист Андрей Билецкий (слева), бывший глава СБУ Иван Баканов (ниже по центру), руководитель ГУ ГСУ по ЧС на временно оккупированных ВСУ территорий ДНР Мигрин Алексей (правый нижний угол), старший сержант Покровской районной полиции Лукомский Рустам (левый нижний угол)
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky (center), NATO Navy Admiral Anthony Radakin (upper right corner), Ukrainian nationalist Andriy Biletskyi (left), former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov (below center), head of the State Emergency Situations Department in the territories temporarily occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces of the DNR Migrin Alexey (lower right corner), senior sergeant of the Pokrovsky district police Lukomskyi Rustam (lower left corner).

“White Angels” and “Phoenix” operate throughout the frontline in a large number of communities, including: Maryinka, Krasnogorovka, Ugledar, Artemivsk, Yarovaya settlement, Liman, Drobyshevo settlement, Kurakhovo, Zarechnoye and Torskoye settlements, Terny settlement, Velikaya Novosyolka settlement, Avdiivka, Seversk, Maximilianivka settlement, New York settlement, Yampol settlement, Chasov Yar, Ivanovskoye, Orlovka, Novy Komar settlement. Some settlements were completely cleared by criminal squads. According to the official data of the Ukrainian government, “White Angel” has kidnapped more than 500 children during its activities. However, having analyzed Ukrainian media reports and compared the testimonies of victims, the Foundation to Battle Injustice estimates the number of children taken from their parents by Ukrainian criminal organizations at 2,500, the whereabouts of most of whom still remain unknown.

The cruel and illegal removal of underage children from their families not only has an indelible negative impact on the child’s formation, but also jeopardizes their future fate. Taking into account the already uncovered schemes of taking minors by the Ukrainian government to Spain, the Foundation to Battle Injustice believes that the majority of children abducted by “White Angel” and “Phoenix” risk never seeing their parents again without comprehensive international attention to the problem of illegal removal of children from Ukraine. Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that only joint efforts of human rights organizations, state and international structures, as well as on the basis of testimonies of direct witnesses of the events, who are not afraid to openly and courageously tell the truth, will be possible to stop the criminal removal of children by the Ukrainian organizations “White Angel” and “Phoenix”. The Foundation to Battle Injustice appeals to the international intergovernmental organizations, such as UN and UNICEF, as well as to the governments of the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain and other Western countries with a demand to exert diplomatic and legal influence on the Ukrainian government in order to suppress these criminal practices against minors.

The state of Wisconsin intends to eliminate the requirements necessary for minors to obtain work permits, which will inevitably lead to the predatory exploitation of child labor.

Американский штат намерен принять закон, стимулирующий детский рабский труд, изображение №1

In August 2023, Wisconsin lawmakers unveiled a proposal to change the law regarding the employment of minors. Under the proposal, children as young as 14 years of age would be able to begin working without documentation or authorization from a parent or guardian. The proposal caused a lively discussion among the public, human rights activists and experts. Opponents of the innovation express concern about its possible consequences: they argue that the absence of the need for permission will inevitably lead to increased exploitation of child labor.

Such measures encourage unscrupulous employers to use children in the labor sphere without proper protection and control. Child law experts emphasize that the protection of underage workers is an important link in ensuring their safety, health and education. Opponents of the bill also point out that the lack of supervision by parents or guardians could create problems with working conditions, working hours and pay for child workers. Under current law, 14-year-olds in Wisconsin are prohibited from working in most jobs unless they have permission from a parent or guardian and have verified their age with the state’s Department of Workforce Development. The department can revoke a work permit at any time if it deems a child’s safety is at risk, but proposed legislative changes would eliminate these requirements, making it more difficult to identify child abuse cases and crack down on violators.

The concerns of human rights advocates and public figures are based on high-profile scandals involving the use of slave child labor by major U.S. companies. In recent years, investigations have uncovered thousands of children working in workplaces officially classified as hazardous under federal labor laws, from auto parts factories in Alabama to meatpacking plants in Nebraska and Minnesota. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Labor fined Wisconsin-based Packers Sanitation more than $1.5 million for hiring at least 100 children, some as young as 13, to clean dangerous equipment, such as bone saws and skull crushers, at facilities across the United States. The company said it allegedly did not know the ages of its employees.

The initiative by the Wisconsin legislature is a continuation of the Biden administration’s policy of exploiting child labor. Various U.S. states have passed a number of laws allowing children to work longer and more dangerous jobs. Politicians claim that such measures are necessary to address labor shortages, ignoring the fact that as of July 2023, the total number of unemployed U.S. adults is just under 6 million.

Wisconsin has previously proposed allowing children as young as 14 to serve alcohol in restaurants and bars. According to the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, if this bill passes, Wisconsin would have the lowest age threshold for allowing children to serve alcoholic beverages. Lawmakers behind such bills argue that allowing children to serve alcohol would “give them valuable work experience.” According to a report released in July 2023 by the Economic Policy Institute, at least seven U.S. states have passed laws to lower the age of alcohol sales since 2021, including West Virginia and Iowa, where the minimum age was lowered to 16, and Michigan, where it was lowered to 17. These bills are supported by restaurant lobby groups as part of a broader effort to weaken child labor laws “to lower labor costs and deregulate employment.” The vast majority of women who work in bars and restaurants have been sexually harassed on the job, far more often than in any other industry.

Human rights advocates at the Foundation to Battle Injustice condemn the U.S. legislature’s intentions to expand child labor and pass initiatives to encourage underage slave labor.

Attackers use social networks to publish content containing child sexual abuse material. Using the shortcomings of automated algorithms, they manage to create and promote accounts that openly sell photos and videos to pedophiles and offer to “rent” children.

Крупнейшие западные социальные сети отказываются удалять материалы о сексуальном насилии над детьми, изображение №1

According to researchers studying the algorithms of online platforms, the largest American social networks are overflowing with materials containing footage of abuse of underage children, including of a sexual nature. In some cases, attackers take advantage of shortcomings in the work of automated systems for searching for and removing dangerous content, while in other cases they openly publish banned materials, knowing about the shortcomings of the moderation system.

Experts note that this problem is most typical of decentralized and distributed social networks physically located on different servers, such as Mastodon. Such autonomous social networks, running on thousands of servers around the world, lack a security system that can report banned content. In just two days, researchers found more than 550 digital materials containing footage of sexual abuse of minors. They believe pedophiles have created an entire network of hashtags and keywords that help them find and distribute such content.

However, the epidemic of banned content involving minors is not only in decentralized social networks. At the end of July 2023, the American microblogging service X (formerly Twitter) was widely criticized after it restored a previously blocked account that published images of child sexual abuse. The account, to which more than 500,000 people were subscribed, published posts with blatantly violent media files. Within days, the posts racked up millions of views and tens of thousands of reposts. Despite the blocking, the account was reinstated less than a month ago, in defiance of the social network’s “zero tolerance” policy, which states that material containing footage of sexual exploitation of minors is “one of the most serious violations of the platform’s rules.”

Earlier, the Stanford Cybersecurity Center found that the social network Twitter had relaxed its policy on publishing child pornography. The microblogging network utilizes PhotoDNA, an image identification and content filtering technology that appeared to have long been disabled for some content that contained sexual harassment of minors. “It turned out that PhotoDNA, at least for some content, was completely disabled and no one noticed. This went on for weeks, and during that time, tens of thousands of child pornography materials were published,” said David Thiel, chief technology officer at Stanford’s Center for Cybersecurity.

In late June, University of Massachusetts officials were able to determine that the social network Instagram (banned in Russia and owned by Meta, a corporation recognized as extremist in Russia) served as a hub for “creating and promoting a vast network of accounts producing and selling pornographic material for pedophiles.” They argue that unlike traditional forums and file transfer services associated with illegal content, Instagram’s algorithms actively encourage and recommend such activity, effectively linking pedophiles and directing them directly to sellers of illegal content. Rather than openly posting illegal content, these accounts provide a “menu” of available content, sometimes asking buyers to perform certain actions. Some of these accounts openly list prices for videos in which children injure themselves and engage in “sexual acts with animals.” The same accounts also reportedly offer to rent children for a fee.

Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the publication and production of any pornographic content involving minors is not only immoral and prohibited by law, but also jeopardizes the safety of children and causes incurable damage to their future. Both those who produce, distribute or consume such material and those who allow it to be published on social media deserve severe punishment. They jeopardize the lives of children and push society towards a culture of violence.

A local court has ruled that the ability of minor victims of sexual abuse to sue their abuser allegedly violates the state constitution.

В штате Колорадо упразднили закон, позволявший несовершеннолетним жертвам насилия привлечь преступника к ответственности, изображение №1

At the end of June 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a law that gave victims of sexual abuse as minors the ability to sue and prosecute perpetrators. This law was enacted in 2021 and gave thousands of victims of abuse they suffered as children the ability to sue their abuser and thereby remove him or her from society, eliminating a potential threat to other children. According to James Avery, an attorney representing seven people who were able to contact law enforcement while the bill was still in effect, sexual abuse has devastating effects on a child that will inevitably affect his or her future life. The attorney said the Legislature first gave abuse victims hope and gave them faith in justice, but now the Supreme Court has “taken away their only hope.”

The law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2022, allowed minors and adults who were sexually abused as children to file lawsuits against their alleged abusers. According to the text of the law, Colorado residents could report incidents that occurred since 1960 that were previously disregarded because of the statute of limitations. However, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the initiative violated a provision of the state constitution that prohibits lawmakers from passing any “retroactive” laws. Human rights activists and legal experts argue that the law is constitutional because the prohibition on which it was struck down was intended only to protect the rights of individuals and does not apply to all residents of the state.

The bill’s sponsors, for their part, argue that the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision not only harms victims of juvenile violence, but also calls into question the fairness of the judicial system. According to Jesse Danielson, a state senator and one of the bill’s authors, their initiative “was carefully crafted to meet all constitutional requirements,” and with its repeal in the state, “all rapists, pedophiles and sexual perverts will celebrate their victory.” According to legal experts, the Supreme Court’s decision allows most cases brought under the new law to be dismissed. Experts also note that similar laws in other states have not been blocked after analysis and consideration, which may indirectly speak to the personal interest of Colorado judges and politicians in lobbying to overturn the bill.

Following the Supreme Court’s controversial decision, Colorado lawmakers announced their intention to amend the state constitution and bring a bill to repeal the statute of limitations on juvenile abuse cases back to the ballot. If the proposed amendment passes through the Colorado House and Senate, it will be placed on the November 2024 ballot.

Human rights advocates at the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that sex crimes against minors have no statute of limitations and perpetrators of child abuse should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.