ANALYSIS #BELARUS#CHINA 04.08.2023 - 4,128 views

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Kiev Kidnaps Kids And Forces Them To Participate In War Propaganda

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The great mass of Western readership is completely befuddled by the blandishments of mainstream propaganda. Putin is evil, Russia is the aggressor, the United States and the EU are the lands flowing with milk and honey, the corrupt Kiev regime is a wonderful democracy. Everyone knows that the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of forcibly moving people, primarily children, from the territory that Ukraine daily bombards with NATO shells.

However, no clear evidence was presented. We cannot consider as such the ardent speeches of Ukrainian “individuals” of draft age “without vaginas,” or those of young “individuals with vaginas,” who stand in the public squares of European cities, pouring red paint on themselves and shaking their breasts – and intimidating the families of respectable Europeans.

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This worries Kiev, and to an even greater extent it worries Washington and Brussels. But there is a way out. If there is no evidence, then it must be created. This requires human material to work with, and preferably that of children – whether alive or dead.

On April 19, 2023, a four-hour hearing was held at the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs under the dramatic heading “Exposing Putin’s Crimes: Evidence of Russian War Crimes and Other Atrocities in Ukraine”. The chairman stated that they were going to consider cases of Russian crimes against TWO civilians (think again about the scale of the “evidence”), a woman and a teenager. At the beginning of the hearing, the chairman played the video (most likely a forgery). The video contains footage of the war and allegedly eyewitness testimony. An attentive viewer will see the following: one man says that he was slapped on the head and legs several times (which is very far from the definition of “beaten”). A woman speaking in Russian describes how she saw a beaten man – not the one who was shown before, but another. Someone had told her about torture. In addition, other people talk about the horrors of the war against the background of staged footage, bodies laid out. Staged footage from Bucha, was also included.

This video was used to create a context for the ostensible subject of the hearings; children who were evacuated by the Russian side from the combat zone. The full video of the hearings shows the attempts of American congressmen and representatives of Kiev “to pound a square peg into a round hole”. It can be seen here [link] (from 31:50 in the video).

Bogdan Yermokhin in Russia

We decided to help our American colleagues with their investigation. We have studied the question in detail, using plentiful open-source material, and evidence provided by journalists. Some journalists had been approached by the family of Bogdan Yermokhin, a boy evacuated from Mariupol. According to Kiev, Yermokhin had been forcibly detained by the Russian special services on the territory of the Russian Federation.

The controversy over the plight of orphans such as Bogdan Yermokhin began as a result of the battle for the city of Mariupol, located on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). In 2014, his mother died and soon his father was killed by unidentified men. Bogdan had been given away to a local Ukrainian family after being left an orphan. However, after the outbreak of hostilities in 2022, his Ukrainian adoptive parents abandoned him and another girl (Bogdan’s adoptive sister), running off to the West.

Until June 2022, some abandoned teenagers (4 underage boys and 2 girls, all orphans) hid in the basement of the college they had attended as students. After fighting for the city began, the college administration left the orphans to an uncertain fate, and fled with all their documents.

The car that Bogdan used to ride around the city looking for food and water

The children suffered an acute shortage of food. The Ukrainian military, who controlled this territory at that time, did not share anything with them.

At the end of June 2022, the Russian military evacuated children to the city of Donetsk. This group, together with other children who were left without parental care, were later evacuated to the Moscow region and adoptive families were found for them. In the Russian Federation, as in Ukraine, there is legislation according to which the priority is to raise orphans in families, rather than in boarding schools.

From that moment on, these children became the occasion for the Ukrainian special services to falsify evidence, in order to accuse the Russian Federation of forcibly moving children.

In November 2022, one of this group of children, a boy named Sergei, disappeared from his foster family, and after a short time re-emerged on Ukrainian territory. With his participation, videos were recorded where he claimed that he wanted to return to the territory of Ukraine, which he did. It is known that when Sergei was on the territory of the Russian Federation, work was actively carried out with him from the Ukrainian side through social networks, that is, he was persuaded to relocate to the territory of Ukraine. Apparently, this work was carried out by Ekaterina Bobrovskaya, the same Ukrainian woman who was invited to a hearing in the US House of Representatives Committee.

At the end of November 2022, Sergei, contacted Bogdan from his home in Ukraine, through Telegram. He wrote that he had successfully reached Ukraine and tried to persuade Bogdan to follow his example. Bogdan wrote in response: “I will think about it”, and “I am not ready yet”, but he expressed a desire to meet with Sergei as a friend and showed interest in how he was able to get to Ukraine. Bogdan did not initiate communication with Sergei, but answered him when he sent messages. Communication between them did not bring results in the form of any actual actions on the part of Bogdan. Subsequently, Sergei did not get in touch with Bogdan anymore.

In March 2023, a woman calling herself ‘Catherine’ contacted Bogdan, posing as a lawyer allegedly acting on behalf of Bogdan’s sister. However, she did not specify from which sister. It is known that Bogdan has two close relatives left: a full sister who lives in Italy and a cousin, Valeria, who lives in Ukraine. His blood sister had maintained communication with Bogdan and even with his Russian adoptive mother, Irina Rudnitskaya. She also informed him that she wanted to save money and come to Russia to visit her brother. She never urged him to return to Ukraine and did not say that she had engaged a lawyer to assist him in this. A cousin, Valeria, with whom Bogdan had rarely been in contact, lives in the western region of Ukraine. According to Bogdan, he called her, on March 9, to congratulate her on the annual women’s holiday (March 8). In the conversation, she also did not ask Bogdan to return to Ukraine and did not mention anything about a “lawyer”.

Ekaterina Bobrovskaya insisted that Bogdan films an appeal claiming that he wants to go to Ukraine. This video could be used for Kiev’s propaganda

Ekaterina Bobrovskaya, the so-called Ukrainian “lawyer,” although more likely an SBU agent, began to put pressure on Bogdan after establishing contact. Realizing that persuasion would not work, she began to threaten the teenager. According to Bogdan, she told him: “If you do not come, your sisters will not live happily ever after”. She steadily increased the pressure, moving on to direct blackmail: “Your Russian adoptive family will have a hard time”. Ekaterina stated the exact address in Russia, where Bogdan’s adoptive family lives. Bogdan’s foster mom has 10 young children, mainly girls aged from 3 to 17 years.

Under this pressure, Bogdan began to become depressed and anxious, which manifested itself in apathy, behavioural changes, and loss of appetite. The boy, who had already endured many upheavals in his life, had become fearful for the fate of his loved ones, both his sisters and his newfound family. Imagine the incongruity of a 16 year-old boy who had survived severe hunger, then going on to lose his appetite. This would be impossible in a normal situation. The level of pressure and blackmail on him from Bobrovskaya was beyond any norms of morality and law.

Contacts shared by the ‘lawyer’

As a result, Bogdan decided that the best way to take the pressure off his family and close relatives, and to stop the blackmail, was to fake an “escape”. The logic of his subsequent actions was to allegedly begin to follow the instructions of the kidnappers, but in such a way that the abduction did not take place, for reasons seemingly beyond his control. He was confident that he and his family were being spied on. He repeatedly stated this in an interview, where he described the motives for his actions.

Bogdan’s Russian adoptive mother, a professional psychologist, Irina Rudnitskaya, later explained that two weeks before Bogdan left in the direction of the border with Belarus, he seemingly became severely depressed. Later, on April 4, 2023, two media reports on this situation were released on Russian television. This is the air of the NTV channel at 13:20 (Moscow time) and the air of the Russia24 TV channel at 21:30 (Moscow time). Both reports are available on the Internet.

On March 21-22, 2023, Bogdan decided that he had enough. He told Ekaterina that he was ready to follow her instructions. She gave him detailed, step-by-step instructions to follow, and 20,000 rubles (about $280 at that time) was transferred to his personal bank card to facilitate his escape.

Ekaterina told the teenager: “In the morning, when you go to college, make sure you take your Russian passport with you. Then take a bus from your village to a particular stop in the city of Ruza (Bogdan’s college is in Ruza). When you get off, leave your mobile on the bus”.

It is worth pointing out that in Bogdan’s adoptive family’s house, his passport was easily accessible to him. It was simply kept in a cupboard, in a package with the rest of his documents. No obstacles were put in the way of the teenager to simply take his documents.

On March 24, Bogdan began to implement his plan. He wanted to give the impression of strictly following the instructions, whilst at the same time ensuring that his ‘escape’ would not succeed. Firstly, he did NOT take his passport with him. Moreover, and contrary to Ekaterina’s instructions, he only withdrew 10,000 rubles from his card, rather than 20,000.

“From Ruza, you need to get to Smolensk by taxi”, Ekaterina had instructed him. Bogdan did just that. He paid the driver the 10,000 rubles that he had withdrawn in cash from an ATM. The cost of a trip from Ruza to Smolensk, through the largest Russian online service, is 6,400 rubles, but Bogdan used a local private carrier, which charged about 10,000 rubles.

The distance from Ruza to Smolensk is 316 km, about 4 hours of travel. On the way to Smolensk, the taxi stopped several times, at a gas station and at a roadside cafe, where Bogdan paid for small purchases with his own card, deliberately leaving an electronic “trail”. The boy knew perfectly well that all his bank card transactions are visible and available to his adoptive mother, through a banking application that allows you to control the expenses of minors. This is common practice in Russia.

He finally reached Smolensk, a large regional center near the border of Belarus. There, in accordance with Bobrovskaya’s instructions, Bogdan boarded a shuttle passenger bus to the “Pochinki” border crossing, between Russia and Belarus. After crossing the border, Ekaterina was supposed to pick him up and take him to the consulate of Ukraine, where Ukrainian documents were already waiting for him, the very ones that the director of his college in Mariupol had fled with. They had told him, however, that after crossing the border he had to be seen to spend at least one night on his own, anywhere on the territory of Belarus, even in a ditch.

Bogdan continued to implement his plan to simulate fulfilling the requirements of the kidnappers. He arrives at the border crossing “Pochinki”, and calmly approached the passport control window, saying that he wanted to cross the border, but did not not have any documents.

The bewildered border control officer called his supervisor. He asked Bogdan why he did not have any documents and why he wanted to cross the state border. The boy told the officer the whole story, that is, that he had been coerced into trying to get to Belarus, where he was to be picked up by a certain Ekaterina. Bogdan, from memory, told the border guards the phone number of his adoptive mother Irina, so they could contact her (as we have seen, he had left his mobile with his address book on the bus on the way to Ruza).

The surprised border guards contacted Irina. She immediately drove to the “Pochinki” crossing, where Bogdan was being fed and cared for in the rest room.

No one had forcibly detained or interrogated the child. He had willingly asked the border guards for help. Later, when talking to journalists, the boy described with enthusiasm how kind and helpful they had been.

Soon his adoptive mother arrived and they drove home together. It would appear that this is a story with a happy ending. Yet Ekaterina (the same Ukrainian alleged “lawyer”) continued to write and call Bogdan.

In response, Bogdan told her that he was unable to get to Belarus due to circumstances beyond his control. Ekaterina began to demand that he record a video message for her, saying that he wanted to go to Ukraine. Bogdan would not do this.

At this time, between March 25-26 and April 2-3, 2023, Bogdan and Irina began to notice that their house was being spied on. They were being shadowed by a car that did not belong to anyone in the village. Bogdan’s adoptive mother decided that the only way to keep her family safe was to seek some publicity. She contacted the leading Russian television channels Russia24 and NTV, as well as the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

It should be noted that the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, on March 17, 2023. According to the court, Lviv-Belova “is allegedly responsible for a war crime” – the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

On April 4, and with the NTV cameras rolling, Bogdan called Ekaterina Bobrovskaya and asked her what exactly he needed to record in the message. She told him that his video message should state that he was not allowed to go outside, that he was not allowed to play music, and that he wanted to return to Ukraine. She again tried to manipulate him with faux empathy: “You need to write it down, I’m worried about you! I contacted Valeria, your sister, she is also worried (Valeria is Bogdan’s cousin, with whom he maintained only formal relations). Record a video message so that I can become your lawyer… ” It should be noted that Ekaterina had earlier introduced herself to Bogdan as already being his lawyer.

This was another lie. If Ekaterina had really been in contact with Bogdan’s cousin Valeria, the latter could have already applied to the state authorities of Ukraine to be recognized as his legal guardian. Yet Valeria had never done this, despite having had many months to act.

Ekaterina decided to try another tactic, reminding Bogdan of his friend Sergei. She suggested: “Come on, I’ll send you his new contact details. He now lives in a hostel, he is doing well, contact him”.

All this was recorded by Russian journalists on cameras. This coercive behaviour unambiguously falls under the criminal clause “attempted abduction of a minor by deception, psychological pressure and blackmail”, regardless of whether it is the continental or Anglo-Saxon system of law.

The question arises, why make such efforts to take this particular teenager out of Russia? After all, according to the US authorities and the court in The Hague, thousands of Ukrainian children were “forcibly” taken to Russia from under Ukrainian shelling. Why exactly Bogdan?

The answer is simple. Everything was done for only one purpose – to fabricate at least some evidence of the “forcible export” of minors from the former territory of Ukraine. The Ukrainian side thought that of all the “thousands of children” they had managed to effectively blackmail Bogdan. He became the number one target.

Bogdan’s adoptive mother, Irina Rudnitskaya, and Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova report that this attempt was far from the only one. In the same period of time, the Russian side recorded similar attempts to kidnap children aged 14-17 years. The tactic was always the same – alternating persuasion and threats. From the point of view of the Kiev special services, children of this age are ideal goals for their efforts. They are independent enough to be mobile, are highly impressionable, and are minors at the time of the alleged “escape”.

Bogdan is now 17 years old, and in less than a year he will become an adult. At that point, no one will be able to limit his freedom of movement. He will be able to go to Ukraine, or to China, or the United States. His adoptive sister, who was also abandoned in Mariupol, is now 18. She is located on the territory of Russia. Obviously, the Ukrainian special services are not interested in those who have crossed the formal age threshold. Apparently, in their opinion, these young people will be difficult to use as examples of the “crimes” of the Putin regime.

This is another example of a joint operation of the Ukrainian and American special services. They are targeting both underage boys and girls. The latter are at a particular risk of violence if they succumb to persuasion and threats. The idea is that if one in ten can be successfully nobbled, then the rest are not important.

The purpose is to fabricate evidence to support the far-fetched accusations against Russia. The hearing in the US Congress Committee has been convened to marshal outright fakes and fabrications for the legal charade in The Hague. Yet the Internet is full of videos detailing the atrocities of Ukrainian Nazis against Russian-speaking residents of the former Ukraine. It is clear that the guiding principle of Western leaders and their fawning media is: “If our statements contradict the facts, then the worse for the facts”. Whilst the myth of the ‘infallibility of the forces of good and democracy’ is crumbling, they are ready to take any steps to delay the inevitable reckoning.

Returning to the story of Bogdan, we would like to note that at the time of writing this article, the boy is still in the Russian Federation, lives in the same Russian family and is again making plans for the future. The boy still remembers the atrocities of Ukrainian militants in Mariupol, and repeatedly declares his support for Russia. Bogdan social media posts reveal his support for the Russian army. His adoptive mother, Irina Rudnitskaya, notes that the young man continues to study as an auto mechanic, and composes music.

We hope that this terrible event in the boy’s life will prove the final ordeal for him, and that everything will be fine for Bogdan in the future!