Op-ed by Irwin Redlener on MS NOW
At least 3,000 children have been killed or injured since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. Some 3 million school-age children have experienced serious educational disruption, and more than 1 million other young people have incurred some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to reports from UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other international rights and humanitarian groups.
In all the talk about proposals for peace, not enough attention is being paid to the horrors that Ukraine’s children have endured — and what more they might be asked to sacrifice.
A case in point: If Ukraine is forced to give up territory illegally annexed or violently occupied by Russia’s army, what happens to the children of the 4 million to 6 million Ukrainians living in those areas?
Much is unknown about what is happening to children in Russian-controlled territory. But enough facts have been reported that we should be deeply concerned. While adults in occupied regions face intimidation and economic coercion, children are being targeted for something far more insidious: the aggressive erasure of their identity.
As seen on MS NOW
