Human Rights Commissioner unaware if the Red Cross had access to Dmytro Khyliuk in Russia

UNIAN correspondent Dmytro Khyliuk / Photo by vechirniy.kyiv.ua

The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets says that he is unaware whether the International Committee of the Red Cross had access to Dmytro Khylyuk, Ukrainian journalist detained in Russia, in the past.

This was Dmytro Lubinets' reply to Ukrinform as he commented on the words by the Institute of Mass Information director Oksana Romanyuk, who said at a press conference on May 30 that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access to the journalist.

"I don't have such information," said Dmytro Lubinets.

At the press conference, Oksana Romaniuk said that the international organization "Reporters Without Borders" had learned that the ICRC had access to Dmytro Khyliuk.

"We are going to use this information, ask the organization directly. There will be a PACE meeting next month where we intend to raise this issue, too," Romaniuk said at the time.

In July 2023, Dmytro Khyliuk's lawyer Oksana Myhhalevych reported that the latest news about the journalist came from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Representatives of this organization talked to Dmytro in late May 2023 and informed his parents that he was alive.

The detention of UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk

On July 13, RSF reported that Dmytro Khyliuk, UNIAN journalist abducted by Russian soldiers in March 2022, is possibly in one of the prisons in the Vladimir region of Russia.

UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been in Russian captivity since March 2022 as a civilian hostage. Such prisoners should be released separately from POW swaps, but the Russians are not doing this.

In May 2023, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that he was personally monitoring the issue UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk's release from Russian captivity.

The Prosecutor General's Office has opened a case regarding the abduction of civilians on the territory of the Dymer hromada. The investigation considers journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his father victims. The case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code (violation of the laws and customs of war).

Russian soldiers kidnapped Dmytro Khyliuk on February 26, 2022, in the garden of his own house in Kozarovychi. He was first kept in the occupied Dymer, and then taken to a prison in Russia.

In December 2023, Dmytro Hylyuk was awarded by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.

The Russian Ministry of Defense does not explicitly say that the UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk is being kept in detention as a prisoner of war, but cites the Third Geneva Convention, which specifically concerns POW treatment, in response to his father's request.

On July 9, 2024 the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said that Ukraine had unofficial data on the whereabouts of UNIAN correspondent Dmytro Khyliuk, who was kidnapped by the Russian troops.