On June 11 an action “Free Ukrainian Captives” will be held in Berlin. The organizers of the event are the representatives of the All-Ukrainian Union of Mothers and Relatives of ATO participants Berehynya and the NGO “Kryvbas Battalion of National Defense”. They want to attract attention of the Europeans to the problem of liberation of the Ukrainian military who are illegally detained in the territory of the occupied Crimea and the Donbas, as well as in the prisons of the Russian Federation.
The visit of the Ukrainian delegation will be held with the financial support of the head of the UKROP faction in Kryvyi Rih City Council, curator of Kryvbas battalion and the chairman of the ATO Veterans’ Council of the “Ukrainian Association of Patriots” Mykola Kolesnyk. Before leaving to Berlin the mothers were met by the representatives of Kyiv and Crimean UKROP in Kyiv.
“The main goal of our delegates is to draw attention of the European leaders, parliamentarians and ministers to the problems of searching the Ukrainians who are in the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk regions, Crimea, as well as political prisoners in Russia,” said Mykola Kolesnyk.
According to him, mothers of the Ukrainian captives demand that the foreign diplomats create an international search group for missing persons, intensify work on the peacekeeping mission and liberate political prisoners held by Russia.
The action will be held on the day of the meeting of the Normandy Four foreign ministers, which includes Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France. At the first meeting after 16-month break, the heads of diplomatic missions will discuss the UN peacekeeping mission introduction in Donbas and the liberation of the Ukrainian political prisoners held in the Russian Federation.
“I hope that, in addition to the action, there will be meetings with German politicians involved in the process of resolving the conflict in the east of our country, who are worrying about the Ukrainian issue,” said the UKROP member.
Reference: At present, the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN, OSCE are not allowed to search the captives. And the Minsk agreements, which were signed before 2015, are not fulfilled. The declared ceasefire is regularly violated – both sides of the conflict and observers say.
According to the NGO “Berehynya”, now 572 Ukrainian military have gone missing or held in captivity. At the same time, the hostile side has confirmed only 88 people, the overwhelming majority of whom are held behind bars.
