For Ukraine, for their Freedom and Ours ! - CSO
Elements of the investigation
Conducted for over a year by the teams of For Ukraine, for their freedom and ours! with the support of Russia-Liberties, it is based on the examination of a thousand pieces.
They are mainly derived from a detailed examination of the Telegram and/or VKontakt accounts of party officials primarily involved in these crimes against Ukrainian minors, particularly those of:
• Two “planners” of the General Council of United Russia : Andrei Turchak (period from 03/14/2023 to 07/04/2023) and Anna Kuznetsova (period from 11/11/2021 to 07/07/2023)
• Two local coordinators : Igor Kastyukevich (period 08/22/2021-
14/07/2023) for the occupied Kherson region, and Artem Turov (period 04/12/2021-28/04/2023) for the occupied Kharkiv region.
They are supplemented and cross-checked with the help of publications in social networks/websites of various actors and institutions involved in the reported facts, or in Russian and Western media.
The redundancy of documents relating to certain events allows us to affirm that this is a collective enterprise, endorsed and claimed by RU (via the party's website or Telegram account), which even promotes it (via the Russian federal or occupation press).
The analysis reveals about forty names, some of which had already been identified - from other sources - as accomplices in crimes committed by the Russian Federation against Ukrainian children.
Omnipresent propaganda
Propaganda and disinformation are omnipresent in these pieces, directly and extensively implicating members of United Russia up to the party chairman Dmitry Medvedev and the speaker of the Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. The deliberate strategy of the Russian state has indeed been to publicize these crimes and to conceal their illegality and criminal intent through massive propaganda.
The particularly intense one from RU will be constant throughout the invasion and occupation, aiming first to claim a humanitarian objective. It will then seek to facilitate population transfers by accusing the Ukrainian army of crimes committed by Russian forces to justify - depending on the case - the invasion or the "evacuations" to Russia, and to praise the benefits of the Russian occupation.
