Russians record fake videos of allegedly releasing civilian hostages – Yatsenko
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Russia kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian civilians from Ukraine. They are held illegally as hostages and are often passed off as prisoners of war, so it is extremely difficult to return such people.
This was reported by the head of the press service of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Petro Yatsenko. According to him, the return of civilian hostages should not be called an exchange.
“The word “exchange” does not fit here. That is, we should catch Russian civilians somewhere and exchange them. Of course, we will not do that. But the problem is really huge. Because there are many civilians whom Russia captured and deprived of their liberty.
They don’t even have any legal basis to actually keep these people in prisons. They are trying to be accused of obstructing the so-called “special military operation”, they are inventing something else“, Yatsenko said.
| PHOTO: dariakulkova/Depositphotos |
The coordination headquarters is also aware of cases where the Russians simply release civilian hostages who were held captive.
“But they let them go without documents, without means of livelihood. Then it is very difficult for them to get out, for example, from Russia or from the temporarily occupied territories to the controlled territory.” – says the head of the press service.
According to him, earlier they offered to exchange Ukrainian civilians for their servicemen.
“But this is also not an option, because a lot of Ukrainians live in the occupied territories. For them, it will be an incentive to grab everyone in a row, in order to exchange them for them later. This is not an option. And this is precisely where international pressure is important.” – explains Yatsenko.
He also noted that the Russians are very sophisticated about how to use hostages. They often record videos of allegedly releasing civilians, although in reality these people continue to be held captive.
“We witnessed how the Russians on camera allegedly released the civilians they had imprisoned. For the video, they said: “This is the checkpoint on the border with the occupied territory. And now we are letting you go, go in all four directions.” And these people seemed to be going somewhere, but then they did not come to Ukrainian territory.”Yatsenko added.
He is convinced that the Russians’ actions are aimed at inflicting as much suffering as possible on the civilian population of Ukraine and discouraging them from helping their army.
The head of the press service of the Coordinating Staff on the Treatment of Prisoners of War also drew attention to the insufficient activity of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the work on the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Thus, in Ukraine, the ICRC has full access to the absolute majority of places of detention of prisoners, and on the Russian side – only to some.
“We would like the ICRC to more actively demand this access and help. Now we see that they have started to work more proactively, in particular, both in terms of delivering parcels and visiting these places. And now they are faced with the fact that Russia allegedly signed all documents regarding access, but is not going to fulfill them, interaction is not going“, Yatsenko concludes.
We will remind, for the first time since August 2023, 230 Ukrainians returned from Russian captivity.
Read also: A combat medic released from captivity got engaged to her brother
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