It Is Not True that Ukraine Enlists 17-Year-Old Children and that It Reduced the Threshold to 16
The claim that Ukraine sends children to the war front to fight the Russians is not substantiated by evidence. Such statements are arbitrary and uncorroborated. The Ukrainian Law on Military Service bans conscription of persons under 18 years old. Article 15 of the Law on Military Service of Ukraine specifies that this applies to persons who are ”Ukrainian citizens whose sex is male, who are healthy, who have reached the age of 18 years old the day they begin their service and people who are not yet 27 and who do not have the right to an exemption or deferral”
The claim that Ukraine sends children to the war front to fight the Russians is not substantiated by evidence. Such statements are arbitrary and uncorroborated. The Ukrainian Law on Military Service bans conscription of persons under 18 years old. Article 15 of the Law on Military Service of Ukraine specifies that this applies to persons who are ”Ukrainian citizens whose sex is male, who are healthy, who have reached the age of 18 years old the day they begin their service and people who are not yet 27 and who do not have the right to an exemption or deferral”.
Post on Facebook claims with no ground whatsoever that Ukraine reduced the age threshold for military service from 17 to 16 years old. Such claims are not supported by evidence and facts and are completely arbitrary. Our fact-check proved that Ukraine does not recruit persons younger than 18 and that the age threshold has not been reduced.
France 24 Observers, has also debunked the news that Ukraine recruits children for the war front. Such news, as described by the site, is usually spread by pro-Russian media and usually fake.
The conscription of children within armed forces is against the law in Ukraine.
Article 15 of the Law on Military Service in Ukraine specifies that the only persons this refers to are:
Ukrainian citizens whose sex is male, who are healthy, who have reached the age of 18 years on the day they begin their service and people who are not yet 27 and who have no right to an exemption or deferral.
No studies can document and support the claims that Ukrainian children are fighting on the front lines.
France 24 Observers spoke with Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Regional Director for Research for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Amnesty International.
Amnesty International has no knowledge of documented cases of child-soldiers in the Ukrainian Army, he said.
Quite often, pro-Russian profiles of social networks spread rumours that Ukraine is sending children to the front line to fight Russian soldiers, writes France 24 Observers.
Such claims were published when Andrew Peter Napolitano, former analyst of the American conservative TV channel Fox News, interviewed Douglas McGregor, former American soldier and frequent collaborator of Fox.
In the course of the interview, McGregor claimed that young Ukrainians were picked up from night clubs and sent to fight. Nevertheless, he offered no evidence for his claims.
All this leads to the conclusion that no evidence substantiates the claim that Ukraine sends children to the war front to fight against the Russians. Such claims are arbitrary and not supported by facts The Ukrainian Law on Military Service bans conscription of persons under 18 years old. Therefore, the post fact-checked is assessed as untrue.
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