The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has reliable information about only nine Ukrainian citizens who were imprisoned in Russia for political reasons.
“At the moment, we can specifically talk about nine Ukrainian citizens, whose imprisonment in Russia is known to us for sure,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yevhen Perebyinis said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday, Nov. 18.
According to him, Russia, in violation of international laws, does not notify Ukraine of the detention of citizens, and Ukraine learns about such cases from other sources (media or relatives).
Thus, Ukrainian citizens who are held in Russian prisons include Nadia Savchenko, Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Hennadiy Afanasyev and Oleksiy Chyrniy, who were detained almost simultaneously in Crimea, Yuriy Yatsenko, who is accused of violating migration laws and is now held in a pre-trial detention center in Belgorod, Mykola Karpiuk, who was arrested in March 2014 under the proceeding opened due to military operations in Chechnya in 1994-2001, and his whereabouts are unknown. Among them are also Stanislav Klykh, who was detained in August 2014, and Russia has not provided information on his location as well, and Serhiy Lytvynov, who is currently undergoing a psychiatric evaluation at the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry.
According to Perebyinis, they all can be regarded as political prisoners.
