Russia-Ukraine crisis: At least 6 hurt after missile hits Kyiv building

A Kyiv high-rise apartment building was hit by a missile strike overnight as Russian troops continue to invade Ukraine; Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst reports on the latest in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Parents of Russian conscripts who say they’ve lost communications with their loved ones are pleading with Kremlin officials for answers as to where family members have been sent amid concerns they have been forced to sign contracts to fight as part of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the report. 

Olga Larkina, the director of Russia’s Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, spoke to Russian investigative news outlet Meduza, describing how Russian conscripts – those fulfilling military enlistment requirements – had been pressured, or at times even forced to sign contracts to become soldiers for the Russian military. 

“Mothers are telling us that their sons have been calling them and saying they’re being forced to sign contracts. We believe it’s wrong to force a conscript to become a contract soldier,” Larkina said, according to the translated article. “The parents who have gotten in touch have told us their sons were just taken by military officers, stamped, and that’s it — now they’re contract soldiers.”

Police officers inspect area after an apparent Russian strike in Kyiv Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. 
(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Russian law is said to dictate that a conscript interested in signing a contract could do so after three months. The process to transfer a soldier from conscripted to contract service reportedly takes months in most cases, but officials are said to be skipping steps.

Those contracted soldiers were then sent to parts of Ukraine as part of the Kremlin’s invasion efforts, and families have since lost communication with them, the report claimed.  

Larkina said she did not know how the soldiers were being forced to sign the contracts.

“I’m panicking — where is my child? I’ve tried calling every phone he’s ever called me from and they’re all turned off. My child said that even the captains’ phones were confiscated,” a mother identified using the alias “Alyona” told Meduza. “I feel awful, I need for the children not to be there, for the children to be [back in] the places where they were drafted, not in this hell.”

Ukrainian soldiers take positions outside a military facility as two cars burn, in a street in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.
(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Larkina said the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers had since reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Military Prosecutor’s office and military leadership about whether conscripts were forced to sign the contracts. She said they never got a straight answer, according to the report.

“They said we would need to call the commanding officer at the military unit where the situation was occurring, that all responsibility for personnel lies with the unit’s commanding officer, but getting in touch with the commanding officer is impossible,” Larkina said.

Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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