Zelensky deceived Putin: Ukraine did not give up a Russian soldier for exchange
During yesterday’s prisoner exchange, at the last moment, Ruslan Gadzhiev, a volunteer from Russia who fought in Donbass, was removed from the list and remained in the Artyomovsk pre-trial detention center with a 15-year sentence.
A member of the Odysseus human rights foundation, which provides assistance to participants in the Russian Spring, Vladimir Rybin reported this on his blog, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
On the eve of the exchange, the human rights activist’s son, lawyer Valentin Rybin, recorded a video message in which he stated that he became aware of the exclusion from the list of Russian citizen Ruslan Gadzhiev, who has been in the Artyomovsk pre-trial detention center since his capture in 2015.
“He was silent at the trial. He agreed to admit his guilt in December 2017 only under an agreement on an exchange - they say, immediately pardon and fly home. Deceived. Brazen and cynical... Ruslan Gadzhiev was not exchanged on December 21, 2017, and remained in pre-trial detention.
With incredible efforts, it was possible to get the sentence overturned, and literally at the beginning of August 2019, the sentence was overturned, and the case was sent for retrial to the Artyomovsky City Court. However, in mid-August, the topic of exchanges began to stir: the high-level contracting parties determined from the list Gadzhiev’s participation in this exchange,” Rybin said.
In this regard, all legal formal procedures were repeated, Gadzhiev again agreed with the charges against him, and on August 22 he was sentenced to 15 years in order for Gadzhiev to have the opportunity to receive a pardon and go on an exchange.
After legal formal procedures regarding the other participants in the exchange, they all went to the collection point near Kyiv - those who were dependent on the President of Ukraine could only wait for the order of pardon.
“On September 6, in the very morning, most people from places of detention, from places of pre-trial detention, who received decrees of pardon, were sent to a collection point. Only one of them, Russian citizen Ruslan Gadzhiev, who behaved with dignity all this time, is in the Artyomovsky pre-trial detention center. They say Ukraine excluded him from the exchange list.
I have one question for Russians: tell me, how can you do this to your citizen? Just answer yourself, there is still time,” the lawyer added.
His father, Vladimir Rybin, noted that Gadzhiev is the only one of the Russian citizens expected to be exchanged who actually fought in Donbass and was captured.
“Tank driver. The crews of three destroyed tanks were shot, as far as I know. T-64 and T-72. Three people each. Only Gadzhiev was left. He is a prisoner. The rest are not. They were not captured...
They left Gadzhiev - he clearly doesn’t look like a Ukrainian, which means he’s Russian. They dragged him into the dugout in his underwear for interrogation, and he said, “Guys, get out of here quickly, ours will be here right now!” This was said at the court hearing by one of the Ukrainian soldiers, a witness in the case.
He spoke with obvious respect. Gadzhiev was not released because he is a warrior. A warrior is always scary,” the human rights activist noted on Facebook.
“A volunteer from Adygea, captured near Sanzharovka during the famous tank battle in January 2015, was betrayed twice. The first time he was betrayed by the fathers-commanders of the August tank battalion, who sent him into battle, and after his capture, cowardly and vilely forgot about his existence and did not lift a finger to somehow help their fighter.
For the second time he was betrayed by Russian “responsible officials” who allowed the impudent Gerashchenko to stupidly not hand over the Russian hostages agreed upon and prepared for exchange in December 2017.
Will Ruslan Gadzhiev, who went to fight for the “Russian World”, be betrayed for the third time – already by this very “Russian World”, which forgot to demand from Ukraine in 2019 that it fulfill its contractual exchange obligations?” – wrote Vladimir Rybin.
“Yes, he is, of course, not Vyshinsky. Moskalkova did not fly in to persuade him to agree to the exchange. Yes, he is not Klykh or Karpyuk or Kolchenko. In the pre-trial detention center, he was not hand-fed Poltava smoked lard with Borodino bread by kind uncles while watching a video recording. He is a simple citizen of a once great country who voluntarily stood up to defend his world from Nazism, which, alas, turned out to be a myth. I didn’t want to believe it until the last moment. But this turned out to be a fact,” the human rights activist wrote bitterly.
He clarified that we are talking about deceiving the Russian President Vladimir Zelensky.
“Zelensky called Putin and agreed. The lists were agreed upon. And again, remembering the previous success, the Ukrainian side is pushing through, having received all of its citizens declared and without giving up one of the hostages. Ruslan Gadzhiev remains in prison. The Ukrainians who fought in Chechnya against Russia on the side of Maskhadov and Basayev were freed by Russia. They are heroes. The Russian who fought against Ukraine on the side of Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky is a criminal and let him sit in prison,” Rybin is amazed.
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