Early on Aug. 30, a former aide to a former member of Ukrainian parliament Anna Islamova claimed that a long-awaited Russia-Ukraine prisoner swap had taken place. Islamova and others wrote that Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov – as well as other Ukrainian political prisoners – had been freed and were on their way to Ukraine.
Other observers and media outlets made similar claims, which now appear to have been preemptive and driven by rumor.
Earlier, Russia’s TASS news service and the Interfax news wire both reported, quoting unnamed sources, that imprisoned filmmaker Oleg Sentsov had been transferred to Moscow’s Detention Facility No. 2, also known as the Butyrskaya prison, from a penitentiary in the town of Labytnagi in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.
“The exchange is complete: the sailors, [Oleg] Sentsov, [Mykola] Karpyuk, [Volodymyr] Balukh, and [Pavlo] Hryb are flying home,” Islamova wrote, referring to media reports. The news was later reshared by Ruslan Riaboshapka, Ukraine’s newly-appointed prosecutor general.
However, many observers appear to have jumped the gun, with no official confirmation as to whether Sentsov had been freed. His whereabouts are currently unknown.
Ukrainska Pravda reported that an airplane carrying former prisoners was scheduled to land at Kyiv’s Zhuliany Airport around 5 a.m. on Aug. 30, where they were expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. As of 10 a.m. there is no information about the plane but journalists and relatives of the prisoners have gathered at the airport.
Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s press secretary, said on Aug. 30 that the negotiations regarding the prisoner exchange are still ongoing.
“The information about (the exchange’s completion) is untrue. When the mutual release of detainees is complete, the Office of the President of Ukraine will notify the public via official channels,” Mendel said.
Olena Hitlyanska, a spokeswoman for the State Security Service, or SBU, also confirmed to the Kyiv Post that the prisoner exchange had not yet taken place and that negotiations were still ongoing. Later, she also warned against the dangers of spreading false or misleading information in the media, and on social media.
There are at least 120 Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia and Crimea.
Sentsov has been Ukraine’s most prominent political prisoner in Russia. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Russia and nearly died in 2018 after 145 days on hunger strike, during which he demanded the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners.
Among other prisoners who were supposed to be released today was 21-year-old Pavlo Hryb who was abducted on August 24, 2017 in Belarus. Hryb was illegally transferred to Russia and sentenced to six years in Russian prison for alleged terrorist activity. He has severe liver problems and his father said he could die in prison without urgent treatment.
There are also 24 Ukrainian navy sailors, who were captured by the Russian coast guard and officers of the FSB security service in neutral waters of the Black Sea near Crimea in November. Ukraine saw them as prisoners of war, while Russia, which doesn’t admit its involvement in the war against Ukraine, was trying them as criminals in civilian courts for allegedly trespassing on Russian territory. In May, an international maritime court ordered Russia to release the Ukrainian sailors, but Moscow said it would not recognize the court’s jurisdiction in this case.
