An emotional Ukraine UN Ambassador reads texts from a Russian soldier sent to his mother. The details come as an advocacy group said that young men were beaten or duped into Russian military service.
The Ukraine ambassador to the United Nations read aloud a series of distraught texts from a Russian soldier to his mother — sent just moments before he was killed in Ukraine — during an emergency meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly.
Sergiy Kyslytsya held up a printout of the text exchanges between an invading Russian soldier and his mother at home, as he emotionally conveyed the man's messages.
"There is a real war raging here. I'm afraid," Kyslytsya said the soldier wrote. "We are bombing all of the cities together, even targeting civilians," the Ukraine diplomat relayed during a rare emergency session of the UN's General Assembly. Since 1950, the body has convened only 11 times under such conditions.
Kyslytsya made impassioned pleas for his country Monday, the fifth day of Ukraine being under the boots of invading Russian troops who have barraged the republic from air, land and sea. Several civilian buildings were bombarded Monday, including a preschool, according to Ukraine officials.
The soldier's texts began with, "Mama, I'm no longer in Crimea. I'm not in training sessions," the Russian ambassador read.
His mother replied, "Where are you then? Papa is asking whether I can send you a parcel."
The soldier responded, "What kind of a parcel mama can you send me?"
His mother: "'What are you talking about? What happened?"
The son: "Mama, I'm in Ukraine. There is a real war raging here. I'm afraid. We are bombing all of the cities together, even targeting civilians. We were told that they would welcome us and they are falling under our armored vehicles, throwing themselves under the wheels and not allowing us to pass.
"They call us fascists, Mama. This is so hard."
Kyslytsya concluded the text exchange by saying the final message was sent "moments" before the soldier was killed.
The ambassador compared Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine to Adolf Hitler's death march across Europe, leading to World War II.
"Very clear parallels can be drawn with the beginning of the Second World War," he said.
Kyslytsya also mocked Putin's announcement Sunday that he was putting his country's nuclear forces on alert.
'If he wants to kill himself he doesn't have to use a nuclear arsenal," the diplomat said. "He has to do what the guy in Berlin did in a bunker in 1945," he said, referring to Hitler shooting himself to death, which led to the end of European fighting.
"If Ukraine does not survive, international peace will not survive," the ambassador said. "If Ukraine does not survive, the United Nations will not survive."
His dire predictions were delivered against a backdrop of escalating chaos between Russian invaders and Ukraine soldiers and citizens, who took to the streets armed with donated weapons and homemade Molotov cocktails.
Reports also surfaced that young men were beaten or duped into Russian military service. According to the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, a Russian advocacy group, the mothers allege their sons recently joined the military as conscripts after being told they were going to the Ukraine border for drill exercises.
Instead, the women said, their sons were ordered, or beaten, into invasion forces and had their phones confiscated.
“We've had a flurry of calls from scared mothers all over Russia. They are crying, they don’t know if their children are alive or healthy,” said the group's deputy chairman, Andrei Kurochkin, according to a local news site.
Related Stories
