18 prisoners from the Crimea will be handed over to Ukraine
Ukrainian and Russian ombudsmen, Valeriya Lutkovska and Tatyana Moskalkova, agreed to transfer 18 Ukrainian prisoners from the annexed Crimea to Ukraine. The parties agreed on this in Geneva on March 6th as part of the annual meeting of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, the press service of the Ukrainian Ombudsman reported.
"During the meeting of the ombudsmen, special attention was paid to the implementation of previous agreements made by the parties, in particular, the transfer of Ukrainian citizens who are serving their sentence in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to institutions on the mainland Ukraine where they will continue to serve their sentences," the report said.
During the meeting, Lutkovska and Moskalkova "discussed ways to speed up the implementation of the technical details of the previous agreements concerning the transfer and examined the implementation of the transfer procedure by both countries."
The Ombudsmen of Ukraine and the Russian Federation reported that the transfer will take place in the near future.
Lutkovska expressed her wish to visit Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, inlcuding Andriy Zakhtey, Yevheniy Panov, Roman Sushchenko and others. In addition, the ombudsmen discussed the problematic issues related to Stanislav Klyh's transfer to Verkhneuralsk.
Earlier it was reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a request to Ukraine on the transfer of 17 Ukrainians serving their sentences in the annexed Crimea.