The State Migration Service of Ukraine on a request of Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Valeriya Lutkovska to verify citizenship affiliation of Hennadiy Afanasyev, who has been sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in Russia, has officially confirmed that he is a citizen of Ukraine.
The State Migration Service’s database confirmed that Afanasyev Hennadiy Serhiyovych was documented with a passport of citizen of Ukraine, said Lutkovska’s press service.
It said that Ukrainian ombudsperson many times paid attention that automatic acquiring of Russian citizenship by Ukrainian citizens is one of the most cynical violations of human rights in Crimea.
Besides, in early March Lutkovska addressed to human rights envoy in the Republic of Komi in Russian Federation to defend the rights of convicted Afanasyev.
Previously, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has expressed its protest against the forced change of citizenship of Crimea resident Hennadiy Afanasyev, who was been convicted in Russia, from Ukrainian to Russian.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry recalled that on March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly issued resolution 68/262 which reaffirmed the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, as well as confirmed the illegitimacy of the referendum in Crimea and Sevastopol held on March 16, 2014.
“Accordingly, citizens of Ukraine who live in the territory of Crimea, can be recognized neither as Russian citizens, nor as persons with multiple nationality. According to the law on Ukraine’s citizenship, Ukrainian citizenship can be terminated only through the renunciation of citizenship of Ukraine, the loss of citizenship of Ukraine, as well as on the grounds stipulated by international treaties signed by Ukraine. Despite the presence in Hennadiy Afanasyev’s personal file of a foreign travel passport of a Ukrainian citizen, as well as his official statements about the refusal of the Russian citizenship and his recognition of his Ukrainian citizenship, the Russian side does not recognize his Ukrainian citizenship and refuses to grant permission for his meeting with consular officials of Ukraine,” the comment reads.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stressed that the citizens of Ukraine who live in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, and who were improperly provided Russian citizenship, will be treated in legal relations with Ukraine only as citizens of Ukraine.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on May 30, 2014, that members of Right Sector had been arrested in Crimea on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks in some Crimean cities.
The FSB later said that the detainees had been plotting “detonating improvised explosive devices before dawn on May 9, 2014, near the Eternal Flame memorial and the Lenin monument in Simferopol and setting fire to the offices of the public organization Russian Community of Crimea and the representative office of the United Russia party in Simferopol on April 14 and April 18, 2014.
“On December 25, 2015, the Moscow City Court convicted Afanasyev of a terrorist attack and sentenced him to seven years in a high-security prison. Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in a high-security prison, Kolchenko to ten years in a high-security prison, and Soloshenko to six years in a high-security prison.
On March 10, 2016, the Ukrainian Justice Ministry said it sent a request to the Russian counterparts asking them to hand over Ukrainians Oleh Sentsov, Hennadiy Afanasyev, Oleksandr Kolchenko, and Yuriy Soloshenko, convicted by Russian courts to Ukraine under the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.
The Russian Justice Ministry said it will respond to Ukraine’s inquiry on within a month’s time.
On April 14, Afanasyev’s mother said that her son had been informed by the Federal Migration Service of Russia that he is a Russian national.
“I have bad news. Gena has received a document, in which the Federal Penitentiary Service recognizes him as a Russian national,” Olha Afanasyeva wrote on Facebook.
This calls into question the possibility of Afanasyev’s transfer for serving prison time in Ukraine, as Russian law prohibits transferring Russian inmates abroad.
