Russians attempting to make up for losses by mobilizing Central Asian migrants in occupied territories – NRC

This was reported by the National Resistance Center of Ukraine (NRC), according to Ukrinform.

"The Russian authorities are trying to cover the serious losses at the front by mobilizing to the TOT of Ukraine, as well as recruiting mercenaries and migrants. In this regard, the occupiers are constantly exerting psychogical pressure on men of military age to force them to sign contracts under the threat of arrest, confiscation of movable and immovable prerty, or deportation from their hometowns to depressed regions of Russia," the statement reads.

According to the NRC, a separate category targeted by Russian military commissariats in the TOT is migrants from Central Asian countries. They are now being actively pressured into signing contracts with the Russian Armed Forces.

The NRC reminded that the forced mobilization of Ukrainian citizens in occupied territories viates Articles 49 and 51 of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. These provisions prohibit the occupiers from forcing civilians to serve in their armed forces. "Of course, rules and laws mean nothing to the Russians," the NRC noted.

Read also: Russian authorities exerting pressure on residents of occupied territories – HRW

The National Resistance Center urges the local pulation in the TOT to avoid any contact with the occupation authorities, to record and document cases of forced recruitment into the occupation forces, and to report crimes committed by the occupiers.

As previously reported, in the temporarily occupied territories, the invaders do not sell insulin and other vital medications to Ukrainians without a Russian passport.