Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty
Nearly six months into Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, with up to 1.6 million Ukrainians forcibly taken to Russia so far, Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces are now using civilians as cannon fodder on the front line and faking artillery attacks to trick them to cross the border.
Just this week, Ukrainian authorities in Kozacha Lopan, a village occupied by Russian forces in the Kharkiv region, said residents were herded up and forcibly “evacuated” to Russia’s Belgorod region after being tricked to board buses by soldiers who told them they had to leave to escape “intense shelling” in the area. There was no such shelling, authorities said.
In the occupied Luhansk region, authorities say 80 civilian men in the city of Starobilsk were forcibly sent to the front line this week alone, sent to die for the Russian forces who violently took control of the area.