You're reading: Poroshenko says Karpiuk, Klykh must be released under Minsk agreements

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has reacted to a Chechen Supreme Court verdict against the Ukrainians Mykola Karpiuk and Stanislav Klykh, by stating that they must be released in accordance with the Minsk agreements.

“They are simply churning out these pseudo-verdicts without even changing prison terms,” Poroshenko said at a Thursday meeting with lawyers Mark Feygin and Nikolai Polozov, who defended Nadia Savchenko in Russian court, the president’s press office said.

The president said he will continue to fight for the release of the convicted Ukrainians and their return home, just as he did for Savchenko’s. “And we will continue to fight for them. We will do our utmost to ensure they return to Ukraine,” Poroshenko said, adding that Ukraine considers Karpiuk and Klykh to be political prisoners, and under the Minsk agreements all prisoners must be released.

The Chechen Supreme Court issued the verdict against the Ukrainian nationalists Karpiuk and Klykh, who were accused of taking part in hostilities and killing Russian military servicemen in the republic during the 1990s, a source spokesperson told Interfax on May 26.