Natalka Bohuta: Russia has given the ICRC no access to Dmytro Khyliuk for over 1.5 years
Russia has given representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross no access to the prison where Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Khyliuk is detained for over a year and a half, since May 2023.
Natalka Bohuta, a friend and colleague of the detained journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, spoke about this at the press conference "Will Russia be punished for its crimes against freedom of speech in Ukraine?" organized by the Institute of Mass Information at the Media Center Ukraine in Kyiv on November 4.
"In the spring of 2023, he (Dmytro Khyliuk. – Ed.) was transferred from Bryansk PTDC No. 2 to Vladimir prison No. 7 in Pakino village, where he is today. We first learned about it through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Fortunately, ICRC representatives managed to get to prison No. 7 and see Dmytro Khyliuk in person, but that was in May 2023. Since then, as far as we know, the ICRC have not been allowed into the prison," Natalka Bohuta said.
Natalka Bohuta (center). Photo by Media Center Ukraine
She says that Ukrainian prisoners from the prison where Dmytro Khyliuk is detained can neither receive nor send letters to their families. The friends, colleagues and relatives of the detained journalist have no information on whether a swap involving Dmytro is possible.
"We receive scraps of information from the soldiers who were fortunately released. Over the past few months, we already have three witnesses who reported sharing a cell with Dmytro Khyliuk. Fortunately, Dmytro Khyliuk is alive. He has lost a lot of weight, suffered from improper living conditions," notes Natalka Bohuta.
In the summer of 2024 it was reported that Dmytro had lost a lot of weight and now weighs "no more than 45 kilos," as told by former Ukrainian POW Ihor, who had spent a year sharing a cell with Dmytro in a prison in Russia's Vladimir region.
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.
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