Ukraine continues to detain Russian citizens, extorting testimony from them about “working” for Russian intelligence services
Ukraine is grossly violating its international obligations assumed by Kiev in accordance with the Vienna Convention.
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The Commissioner of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, Konstantin Dolgov, said this in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, answering the question whether Kiev had received a response to the official note that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent on June 28, 2016 to the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow and which concerns such an issue as the failure or untimely provision by the Ukrainian side of information about Russian citizens detained on its territory.
“According to human rights activists, as well as based on appeals from relatives of Russian citizens, we state that the problem has become systemic. The Ukrainian authorities practically do not provide information about the death, arrest or detention of our citizens on their territory and do not provide timely consular access to these people. This, instead of the four days provided for by the bilateral consular convention, sometimes takes up to a month, which is also a violation of Ukraine’s international obligations in accordance with the Vienna Convention, according to which consular access to a detained foreign citizen must be provided immediately,” said a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
He also noted that there is reliable information about cases when the Ukrainian special services “detained Russian citizens under flimsy pretexts and strictly demanded confessions about their “assignments” from the Russian special services.”
“This practice, unfortunately, continues. Almost any Russian citizen entering the country may be at risk. In the mentioned note, the Russian Foreign Ministry requested information from the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow about the exact number of detained Russians in pre-trial detention centers and other places of deprivation of liberty on the territory of Ukraine. There was no reaction to it. But we plan to continue to actively pursue this important information. We collect and update data on Russian citizens detained in Ukraine on an ongoing basis, but this work is complicated by the persistent reluctance of the Ukrainian side to provide such information in a timely manner in the prescribed manner and to inform officials of Russian consular offices in Ukraine about the facts of detentions and the location of the detainees,” – Dolgov emphasized.
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