Police, Ireland. Archival photoMOSCOW, April 21Fyodor Smirnov, Chairman of the Council of Russian Compatriots in Ireland, said that Russian-speaking children in local schools are being harassed after the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine. «They (classmates) … call them Russian fascists — it's just bullying. It's Russophobia,» Smirnov said in an interview with The Times. According to him, it is Russian-speaking children who are asked by teachers to help translate Ukrainian refugees when they begin their studies in Ireland. However, after school, they become targets of attacks. «Many (Russian-speaking children) are not even Russians — they are Lithuanians, Latvians or anyone else,» Smirnov noted. According to one of the mothers, her son, a Latvian, was called several times at school Nazi. She said the school looked into the issue and the bullying has since stopped. Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and , on March 25, completed the main tasks of the first stage — significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
