Lubinets: Russia is extremely unwilling to discuss political prisoners from Crimea

Dmytro Lubinets. Photo by Olena Vedmid / LB.ua

Russia is extremely unwilling to discuss Crimean Tatar political prisoners, said Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, at the international human rights conference “Decade 2014–2024. Reclaiming Human Rights. Preserving Democracy” in Kyiv on December 5, Suspilne reports.

“I can confirm that in my communication both through intermediaries and directly with Russia's representatives, they have been extremely unwilling to discuss the issue of Crimean Tatar political prisoners who have been detained in Ukrainian Crimea since 2014,” he said.

According to him, Turkiye is “very helpful” in the efforts to release the political prisoners.

“I have personally traveled to Turkiye several times, I have met with the President of Turkiye, Mr. Erdogan. The Turkish Commissioner is constantly in contact with us. I can't tell you much, but I can definitely confirm that this country has done a lot, and the issue of bringing them back has been raised, and (some – Ed.) political prisoners have been brought back," Lubinets noted.

The Commissioner said that as of now, 218 political prisoners from Crimea have been registered. “A few” have been brought back to Ukraine.

For its part, Ukraine continues to look for both new mediators and new mechanisms to put pressure Russia regarding the Kremlin’s prisoners, as well as to spread global awareness of the violation of Ukrainian political prisoners' rights, the Commissioner added.

“We even prepared a separate information brief, which we handed over to representatives of many countries who visited Kyiv during the Crimean Platform Summit, when I organized an online discussion with my colleagues on the illegal annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation,” Lubinets said.

As the IMI reported, at least 30 civilian Ukrainian media workers are in Russian detention, including citizen journalists from Crimea.