Teenage Cadets Swear Allegiance to Ukraine Rebel State
Not long ago, the cadets at the military academy in east Ukraine's industrial hub of Donetsk swore allegiance to the Ukrainian flag.
Now, as fighting rumbles on between between pro-Russian insurgents and government forces, they are pledging an oath of loyalty to the rebels' self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR).
"As I enter into the Donetsk military academy I promise to serve the country," some one hundred teenagers in military uniforms and black great coats chanted at a recent ceremony.
"I promise to be a worthy heir to the traditions of my people, its armed forces and to respect the culture and customs of my country: the DNR."
In front of them stood Alexander Zakharchenko the head of this unrecognized Kremlin-backed statelet in combat fatigues.
"The life of the republic and our citizens will one day be in your hands and you will be protected. Protected from all our current and future enemies," he told the cadets.
The boys, he says, will one day become the future "backbone officers of the army of the DNR."
After that he took a walkabout among the large number of relatives that had come to attend the ceremony, shaking hands and stirring them with more rhetoric.
"Do not forget that we are a republic. The army is one of the official attributes of the republic," he tells one person.
"People died for that flag, carried out attacks with the flag. Some say it is not recognized, but for us it is a sacred symbol."
Mothers, fascinated, listened in. They filmed the charismatic leader with their laptops and giggled when they caught his gaze.
Victoria, her hair red and lips redder, could not hide her pride in her son for swearing allegiance to the new republic.
"Quite simply, he made his choice," said the 40-year-old mother.
Another parent Olga, 32, sent her son Dmitry to military school "to become a man."
What is important, she said, is that her son grows up into "a future protector of the homeland".
"We do not have anything against Ukraine," Olga, who was wrapped up against the cold in a fur coat, said. "But what is happening now is not our fault."
One elderly woman briefly broke the protocol, shouting to her grandson Vladik to turn round and smile for the camera.
The embarrassed adolescent did his best to ignore the shouting.
In the distance the thud of shelling could be heard occasionally from the deadly clashes between Kiev's army and the rebels forces that have left over 4,300 dead since April.
Source: Agence France Presse
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