Heartbreaking image from desperate Ukraine mother
Content warning: This article contains distressing content and images relating to the conflict in Ukraine.
Images have emerged of Ukrainian children with their family’s contact details scrawled onto their bodies with black markers, as parents make preparations out of fear they will be killed by Russian forces.
Kyiv journalist Anastasiia Lapatina shared a picture from a Ukrainian family with an insight into how families are preparing for the war to close in.
“Ukrainian mothers are writing their family contacts on the bodies of their children in case they get killed and the child survives,” Ms Lapatina captioned the photo.
“And Europe is still discussing gas,” she added, referring to the European Union’s controversial decision to not ban oil or gas exports from Russia.
The mother, Aleksandra Mako, originally posted the photo on Instagram, where she detailed her fear and explained how she wrote details on her daughter’s back “in case something happened to us” and if she was picked up by someone.
“Then a crazy thought flashed through my mind, ‘why didn’t I tattoo her with this information?’” she wrote.
The distressing images come after The Guardian reported that children were being used as “human shields” by Russian soldiers attempting to flee.
The publication reported that buses carrying children were placed in front of tanks in Novyi Bykiv, a village close to Chernihiv.
“Cases of using children as cover are recorded in Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia oblasts,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmila Denisova, said.
Colonel Oleksander Motuzyanyk, one of the country’s highest military officials, further alleged the Russians were using children as hostages in their trucks.
“Enemies have been using Ukrainian children as hostages, putting them in their convoys, moving their vehicles,” he said.
“Russian soldiers have used Ukrainian children as hostages, putting them on their trucks. They’re doing it to protect their vehicles when moving.
“There have been cases of brutal behaviour against minors been recorded, documented by a Ukrainian and international institutions, and we’d like to emphasise that information in each and every case will be given to the national criminal courts and the occupiers will be brought to justice for each and every military and war crime they commit.”
It has also been reported that children were among the hundreds of people found dead in the town of Bucha, and that Russian soldiers were “mutilating children”.
The events in Bucha have prompted US President Joe Biden to call for a “war crimes trial” and vow even harsher sanctions against Moscow.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has also said the bloc was ready to send investigators to the town to gather evidence of possible war crimes.
Image: Twitter