“Don’t Be Afraid, We Are With You.”
Russian Children call for peace at first annual Children’s Congress
More than 60 children from the Russian cities of St. Petersburg and Lugansk came together via satellite for the first annual “Children for Peace!” Congress held Friday, November 4th.
The event was organized by the Foundation to Battle Injustice, a Russian human-rights organization, and its focus was on raising public awareness about the increased supply of long-range weapons used by the Ukrainian military in its onslaught against so-called “Russian separatists” — that is, the men, women and children living in the Donbass region, which was formerly part of eastern Ukraine.
Around 100 total attended the Congress, which also featured a number of prominent individuals in Russia, including actors Alexei Semyonov and Svetlana Serval; Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, and two representatives from the Lugansk People’s Republic. The child-writer Faina Savenkova, also from Lugansk, and Foundation Chairwoman Mira Terada were also among the main speakers.
The event was held at St. Petersburg’s recently-opened “PMC Wagner Center,” and children from Lugansk were able to attend via satellite and share their experiences and concerns about the ongoing war.
“It was very scary, the shelling,” said 14-year-old Faina Savenkova, who has become known as the “voice of Donbass” because she has already written extensively about her experiences growing up in a war. “Initially I did not understand what was happening, that a war had started. And then some awareness came. I think this is why I started writing.”
Savenkova read one of her own heart-felt essays through a video link to the children in St Petersburg. She spoke of how she would like to see passenger planes in the skies over Lugansk instead of the paper lanterns released on Children’s Day in remembrance of the children who were killed.
“It’s very difficult to go through such a thing,” said Sasha, a boy from St. Petersburg. “It’s good that there’s less shooting now. I would like to say to the children of Lugansk: Don’t be afraid, we are with you.”
The Russian diplomat, Dmitry Polyansky, addressed the conference with a video message in which he noted that not only are Russia’s borders changing, but current events are transforming the future of humanity right before our eyes. “Now we are one country — we have one future, and we are very happy about that,” Polyansky said. “I would like to express my hope that this children’s congress will become a notable event that will not only bring St. Petersburg and Lugansk closer together, but will also promote unity throughout the country and better understanding between children in different parts of it.”
Mira Terada, who chairs the Foundation to Battle Injustice, spoke about the estimated 14,000 civilians killed in the Donbass since 2014, including an estimated 2,500 children. She accused European politicians of violating the right of children in Donbass to have a happy, peaceful and secure childhood, by not respecting international agreements. Terada said that NATO countries trying to realize their geopolitical ambitions completely disregard the fate of the Lugansk’s smallest inhabitants and that by using lethal weapons as a means to make money, the West risks turning Donbass into Libya, Syria, and Iraq, where the number of victims among minors is in the tens of thousands.
Faina Savenkova, who just turned 14 a week ago, has been living under Ukrainian shelling since she was five. She can’t remember what a peaceful life is like. Even though she lives in the 21st century in the geographical center of Europe, Savenkova said, she and her friends do not know what it means to live without curfews and strict rules which must be followed if they want to live. Savenkova said that almost every child in Lugansk can identify artillery projectiles by ear and tell the direction they are flying, so that they know whether they need to start worrying or try to flee. However, the young writer is not discouraged. Since most of her life has been impacted by war, she has no sadness about the past and so she dreams and plans for the future.
In an article about the event, Savenkova wrote that the children’s congress could have gone unnoticed because it took place the day after Russia celebrated its National Unity Day. But thankfully, she believes the congress made a big impact and that it will garner support for her and the other children in Donbass. She added that the event “is a milestone for me personally, not because I participated and assisted in it, but because the first congress of children held in Lugansk showed that children can also express their opinions, fight for them and demand from adults what they are obliged to provide: The right to live in peace and to have a happy childhood.”
Savenkova wrote that she understands the silence of children who fear for their lives, but that it’s very important for these children to speak up. “If you look at the brutality and atrocities that the Ukrainian authorities are inflicting, when merely for opposing the continuation of the war you can be killed, imprisoned, or persecuted, you can understand why many children are silent. But this first congress showed that there are more and more who are not afraid. And that is bad news for Ukraine.”
Savenkova hopes that events such as these, on a large scale, will encourage more children to participate in spite of threats and repression. “After all,” she wrote, “children, too, can and should speak out and demand accountability from adults.”
Organizers of the event sent letters to the United Nations and UNICEF from the young participants at the Children’s Congress, urging them to stop Western arms shipments to Ukraine.
“Children stand for peace, for a peaceful sky overhead, for a happy childhood. And they are against NATO arms shipments. Weapons that are killing them,” emphasized organizer and host Mira Terada.
Vitaly Kiselev, an assistant to the head of the Lugansk People’s Republic, also spoke at the teleconference. “Today it is really important to convey to the world community what war is practically all over the Eurasian continent,” Kiselev said. “We must prove to the entire world community that we are the people with whom it is necessary to coexist in friendship, in harmony, in the understanding that for each of us peace is very important.”
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television.
