The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Russian consul to Ukraine to demand explanations as to why Ukrainian consuls have not been admitted to Roman Suschenko, a correspondent of the Ukrinform national news agency arrested in Russia, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariana Betsa has said.
“We forwarded another note to the Russian Foreign Ministry yesterday to demand that consuls be provided with access to Roman Suschenko: there has been no reaction either to the embassy’s address to the FSB [the Federal Security Service] investigative directorate or to notes to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Therefore, we are summoning the Russian consul to Ukraine today to demand that he explain why they haven’t provided access to our citizens in keeping with all norms,” Betsa told Interfax-Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will keep demanding a meeting with Suschenko, Betsa said.
“We have to understand all circumstances of his detention and see in what conditions he is being held and what other assistance is needed,” she said.
It had been reported earlier this week that the FSB had detained Suschenko on spying charges in Moscow, and the Lefortovsky District Court sanctioned Suschenko’s arrest for two months on October 1.
Kyiv has qualified Suschenko’s detention as provocation and the spying charges as farfetched.
