After the statement I made yesterday on acts of unlawful pressure by the representatives of the SSU against the illegally detained persons, the Ombudsman`s Office and I personally receive many calls from persons, illegally detained in the territory of Ukraine, and their relatives. I`m grateful to everyone who assisted the Ombudsman`s Office and contributed to the fulfillment of our shared mission – to liberate all our men as soon as possible.
I would like to outline the selective character of influence on the detainees by the representatives of Ukrainian security agencies: some are forced to submit a statement of waiver of the exchange, others are forced to sign a paper of collaboration with SSU, still others are completely ignored – they were not even called for questioning. I assume, the approach of the Ukrainian side can be explained by lack of qualifications of our opponents and their challenging task to legally justify aquittance of our men, because it is a well-known fact, that people, kept in the premises of the Ukrainian side, are irrelevant to the conflict.
I would recommend adoption of the Amnesty Law to the Ukrainian side to help our opponents get out of the self-made legislation trap. This would help Ukraine legally justify acquittance of detainees and fulfill at last one of the requirements of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of Minsk Agreements.
I would like to remind, that the Ukrainian side constantly manipulates with the lists of detainees by refusing to acknowledge keeping of the claimed persons. In this regard, I have addressed the official letter to the Ukrainian representatives in humanitarian subgroup and also to the representatives of international community. I hope, the representatives of the UNO and International Committee of the Red Cross shall respond promptly to my request.
