Fears have been raised that Vladimir Putin is mulling over the idea to deploy youngsters from Russia’s “Youth Army on the battlefield” in Ukraine.
The Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu established the Russian Youth Army in October 2015 and has hundreds of thousands of youngsters.
The youngster who claim they are “ready to fight” could be sent to the front as Russia has had more than 150,000 killed and around 180,000 wounded.
Ian Garner who is a historian and an author reported the concerns by Ukrainian politician Lyudmyla Denisova that “Russia intends to use Youth Army members on the battlefield in response to its enormous troop losses.”
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Garner said that the “Z Generation” who are the group of youngsters that are growing up drenched in Putin’s pro-war and Western-hating propaganda.
Garner said in his upcoming book “Z Generation” that “Many of the teenagers declare themselves ready to fight.
“One teen posts a TikTok-style clip showing off his acrobatic firing routines with an army-issue rifle in a school gym. He has overlaid this with the caption: ‘I’m here to save people!’”
The Dail Mail published and extract from Garner’s book, saying, “A group from Sakhalin, in the far east of Russia, uploads a clip of youngsters training in a forest.
“Young soldiers throw themselves to the ground, take up firing positions and move along a wooded track in response to their commander’s barked instructions.
The US think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have also suggested that Putin could be wanting to establish the Youth Army in Ukraine who have been trained by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group.
The ISW wrote, “Wagner Group are reportedly training Ukrainian children to use weapons as part of the Russian Young Army Cadets National Movement (Yunarmiya) in occupied Ukraine.
