Europe ‘ready to sacrifice’ Ukraine: Ex-US intel officer on Trump-Putin ties

“There is a tremendous amount of opposition inside the United States and Europe to prevent (US President) Donald Trump from having better relations with Russia. Unfortunately, these people who oppose better relations with Russia are willing to sacrifice Ukraine to achieve their outcome. And when I say sacrifice, I mean literally sacrifice Ukraine. They are destroying the genetic pool of Ukraine,” Scott Ritter, former US intelligence officer and ex-UN inspector, was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

The Russian media outlet cited Ritter from his interview with the Dialogue Works YouTube channel, where he also noted that Kyiv would soon start “sending 18-year-olds to the front line”, resulting in “Ukraine finished as a race”.

Ukraine has reportedly declared and often extended a general mobilisation in a bid to prevent men of draft age from avoiding service since February 2022, when Russia carried out its full-scale invasion of Kyiv.

Military commissariat employees have increased raids on public places due to a major shortage of manpower in the army, and are beating detainees, TASS reported.

Between January and June, the Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman’s office reportedly received over 2,000 complaints about the use of force by the conscription patrols.

In one of the cases, patrol officers allegedly hit a bicyclist in the central Riven area after he refused to pull over, Al Jazeera reported. They further beat him, tear-gassed him to deliver him to the conscription office and “illegal mobilise”, the report mentioned.

Earlier this month, police had used tear gas to disperse a crowd that tried to barge into a conscription office and release some 100 men they claimed had been taken illegally in the central city of Vinnytsia.