LMY746

It is sad to see that I have lost around 100 followers because I oppose Zelensky, but I would rather lose followers than pretend Ukraine suddenly became a spotless liberal democracy the morning Russia invaded. For years before 2022, official reports were documenting serious problems with trafficking and the exploitation of children in Ukraine. The US State Department described Ukraine as a "source, transit and destination country" for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour, while children from disadvantaged families were forced to beg and children in orphanages and crisis centres were repeatedly identified as especially vulnerable. By 2018, the State Department was reporting that between roughly 82,000 and 200,000 children were institutionalised in state run orphanages and were especially vulnerable to trafficking, while officials in several institutions were alleged to have been "complicit or wilfully negligent" in the sex and labour trafficking of girls and boys under their care. In 2021, the same Department was still reporting corruption in the police and judiciary, investigations into officials allegedly complicit in trafficking, and no convictions of complicit officials for the fourth consecutive year. It also again recorded allegations that officials in state run institutions and orphanages had been "complicit or wilfully negligent" in trafficking children. That is not Russian propaganda - Those are American government reports. My disgust is not directed at ordinary Ukrainians, who have been treated appallingly by war, corruption, trafficking networks and oligarchic politics for years. It is directed at the people in power who are prepared to wrap themselves in flags and present themselves as untouchable heroes while ordinary men, women and children pay the price. You do not have to support Putin to criticise Zelensky, and you do not have to hate Ukrainians to ask what happened to all the uncomfortable facts about Ukraine that Western governments themselves were documenting before the war. If people want to unfollow me for saying that, fine. Integrity matters more than followers. Further reading: [US State Department, 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, Ukraine](2009-2017.state.gov/j/tip/rl…) [US State Department, 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report, Ukraine](2009-2017.state.gov/j/tip/rl…) [US State Department, 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report, Ukraine](2021-2025.state.gov/reports/…) [US State Department, 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report, Ukraine](2021-2025.state.gov/reports/…)