Verkhovna Rada Commissioner on Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova announces her intentions to visit Moscow next week and hold talks with Tatyana Moskalkova, the Ombudswoman for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, and Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, about 24 Ukrainian prisoners of war held in Moscow.
“I communicate with Mrs. Moskalkova every day, but she, too, cannot do something according to her mandate – to give a certificate, let me into the detention facility in Lefortovo, in Matrosskaya Tishina – since she cannot make such a decision. I repeatedly applied to Bortnikov, who is the director of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. Now my applications are being reviewed about the possibility of meeting with our prisoners of war in the detention facility,” Denisova said in a comment to Ukrainian TV channels in Odesa on Thursday.
“I am in the city of Moscow next week. I’ll talk directly to them about all these issues. We know that there will be court hearings in the Lefortovo court to consider extending the period of stay of our seamen, unfortunately, in the custody. We’ll be working” added the Ukrainian ombudswoman.
The Russian border guard used weapons to detain the Yany Kapu tug boat and the armored gunboats Berdiansk and Nikopol, which were traveling from Odesa in the Black Sea to Mariupol in the Sea of Azov on November 25. The vessels were escorted to Kerch.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal case over illegal border crossing.
Courts in Simferopol and Kerch put 24 Ukrainian citizens under arrest until January 25, 2019.
As of November 29, the arrested sailors had been transported to Moscow; 21 of them have been placed in the Lefortovo detention center, and three others, who were wounded in the incident, are currently in the infirmary of the Matrosskaya Tishina detention facility.
At the beginning of December 2018, Denisova turned to Moskalkova and Bortnikov regarding her visit to Moscow to see our prisoners of war-Ukrainian sailors.
