Now held in a POW camp in western Ukraine, Anton does not consider himself a traitor. He calls Putin “my President” and said he joined Russia’s army to defend “my land,” the BBC reported.
The BBC interviews show what more than a decade of Russian rule has produced in occupied Donbas. Moscow has replaced Ukrainian schools, media, and public institutions while presenting the occupied regions as permanent parts of Russia. It also recruits residents or forces them to fight against Ukraine.
The BBC said prisoners could refuse and were interviewed without guards or cameras.
Almost all its Ukrainian-born interviewees from territories occupied since 2014 said they had enlisted willingly. Anton said he was not a traitor and called Vladimir Putin “my President.”
His friends also volunteered. Messages announcing their deaths followed: “Dead, dead, dead.”
Forced conscription of Ukrainians in occupied territory
One prisoner from Donetsk Oblast told the BBC he had been forced to fight. He wanted only to return to his wife and children.
The BBC cited an official intelligence-based estimate that Russia forcibly conscripted more than 50,000 Ukrainians in occupied areas. It noted that other estimates were higher.
Ukrainian veteran Pavlo Pshenychnyi told Hromadske that occupation authorities used planted drug evidence to push him into Russia’s army. They threatened him with up to 12 years in prison.
Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits occupying powers from compelling protected residents to serve in their armed forces.
Anton and the Russification of occupied Ukrainian territory
Russia took control of Anton’s home while he was still in primary school. By adulthood, he called himself Russian and dismissed his Ukrainian surname as irrelevant.
Putin’s 2025 policy decree set a 95% target for “all-Russian civic identity” by 2036 and ordered the integration of occupied Ukrainian regions into Russian education, culture, and media.
Kherson-based outlet MOST reported that Russia will introduce compulsory textbooks on 1 September, presenting four occupied Ukrainian regions as historically Russian.
Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation reported in 2025 that more than 100 teenagers from occupied Luhansk attended a Russian military camp. They received firearms, drill, and guard-duty training.
The center described the camp as part of a wider effort to spread Russian war propaganda and hostility toward Ukraine.
Petro Yatsenko of Ukraine’s POW Coordination Headquarters told the BBC that these prisoners were strongly pro-Russian. He said their national identity was “very blurred.”
Ukraine still considers them Ukrainian and treats Russia’s control of their home regions as temporary, the BBC noted.
