At the end of March, a video circulated on Telegram channels in which more than 20 teenagers, dressed in military uniforms with the flag of Ukraine and bulletproof vests, were traveling somewhere on a bus. The captions for the video say that the children are “preparing to be sent to the front.” We checked what is actually happening in this video.
Telegram channel «Ukraine.ru”(146,000 views at the time of writing the analysis), commenting on the video, he writes that “Ukrainian teenagers in military uniform are sent to the fields - there they are being prepared to be sent to certain death,” that is, to fight against “tanks and artillery, not to mention the more technologically advanced weapons of the Russian Armed Forces.” “Remember, there were jokes that Zelensky would soon send children into the trenches to fight? This is not a joke,” the authors conclude. Some Russian media interpreted the video in a similar way. So, the publication "Politicus» wrote: “A group of Ukrainian teenagers in military uniform are being taken to a training ground, from where, according to preliminary information, they can be sent to the front.” And the TV channelRen-TV» suggested that “in a few months, when they turn 18, they will probably end up on the front line.”
With less specific captions like “Teenagers are already being prepared for slaughter” and “Ukrainian teenagers are being prepared to fight for the Zelensky regime,” the video was shared by such Telegram channels as “Pozdnyakov 3.0"(410,000 views), "KB 18+"(367,000), "Uncle Slava" (207,000) and "Ostashko! Important"(118,000). This video also circulated on Facebook And X on English, Italian, Portuguese and other languages. Former US State Department employee under Donald Trump Michael Benz commented on the video on X, writing that his country sponsors the use of child soldiers in Ukraine, and the owner of the social network Elon Musk answered Benz: “Sacrificing the color of youth is in vain.”
At the time this video appeared on Telegram channels—March 29, 2024—men aged 27 to 60 were subject to military conscription for mobilization in Ukraine. On April 2, the country's President Vladimir Zelensky signed law on lowering the lower limit by two years: now, under martial law, Ukrainians will be able to be drafted into the army from the age of 25. At the same time, the participation of minor children in hostilities and the involvement of minors in paramilitary forces in Ukraine is legislatively forbidden.
The teenagers in the video look much younger than 25, and, as Telegram users rightly point out, they still look like schoolchildren. Judging by stripes on their sleeves, these are cadets Kyiv Military Lyceum named after. Ivan Bogun. In the photographs from the official page of the institution on Facebook you can see exactly the same chevrons on the uniforms of cadets and teachers.
To the Lyceum accept boys and girls after the 7th or 9th grade of secondary school, that is, at the time of admission, cadets can be from 13 to 16 years old.
Kyiv Military Lyceum named after. Ivan Bogun was created in 1992 on the basis of the Kyiv Suvorov Military School. In addition to general education subjects, cadets study the basics of military and medical training, as well as other specialized disciplines. The educational program includes regular trips to workout on fire training.
On the lyceum's Facebook page published some reporting videos, which the cadets filmed on such trips. Stylistically, the viral video is similar to a fragment of one of these recordings - many reporting videos begin with a scene on a bus on the way to the training base. Moreover, in the videos filmed in the spring and fall, the cadets are wearing very similar uniforms.
The earliest publication we found of a video with teenagers allegedly being “prepared for slaughter” appeared in the Telegram channel “Pozdnyakov 3.0» March 29 at 11:56 Moscow time. This channel, like others mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, is not the first to distribute fakes about the mobilization of minor Ukrainians or about “recruitment into Ukrainian detachments of juvenile militants.” "Verified» and other fact-checking projects already sorted it out similar materials and came to the conclusion that they were disinformation in nature.
Thus, the teenagers in the video are not mobilized schoolchildren who are being prepared to be sent to the front, but cadets of a military lyceum. And they are not being taken “to slaughter”, but, apparently, to trainings that are included in the educational program of the lyceum.
Cover photo: Telegram
Read on topic:
- Is it true that the Ukrainian bill on restricting the travel of teenagers abroad was developed for their subsequent mobilization?
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- Is it true that in Ukraine they started printing summons on checks?
- Did the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine say that you can serve in the army with any disability group?
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