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Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Desperate to get its illegally detained civilians out of Russia, Kyiv offers Ukrainian collaborators in exchange
Ukraine sent dozens of its own citizens to Russia last month, releasing them from prisons in an attempt to secure the release of dozens of Ukrainian civilians held illegally in Russian jails – a move described by human rights activists as desperate and worrying. According to the Ukrainian government, 70 Ukrainian civilians convicted of collaborating with Russia were released as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow last month. Ukraine said all of them went into exile voluntarily, as part of a government scheme that gives anyone convicted of collaborating with Russia the option of being sent there. But human rights groups and international lawyers say the scheme is problematic, contradicts previous statements made by the Ukrainian government, and could potentially put more people at risk of being snatched by the Russians. 'I completely understand the sentiment, we all want the people (who are detained in Russia) to be released as quickly as possible and Russia has no will to do that… but the solution that is offered is definitely not the right one,' said Onysiia Syniuk, a legal analyst at Zmina, a Ukrainian human rights group. The program, called 'I want to go to my own,' was launched last year by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service and the parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights. A government website outlining the program includes photos and personal information of some of the 300 Ukrainian people that the government says have signed up to the program. The profiles of 31 of them are stamped with a picture of a suitcase and the words 'HAS LEFT,' with a note saying he or she 'left for Russia while at the same time real Ukrainians returned home.' According to Kyiv, at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are known to be detained in Russia, although the real number is likely to be much higher. Some 37,000 Ukrainians, including civilians, children and members of the military, are officially recognized as missing. Many have been detained in occupied territories, detained for months or even years without any charges or trial, and deported to Russia. They include activists, journalists, priests, politicians and community leaders as well as people who appear to have been snatched by Russian troops at random at checkpoints and other places in occupied Ukraine. The detention of civilians by an occupying power is illegal under international laws of conflict, except for in a few narrowly defined situations and with strict time limits. Because of that, there is no established legal framework for the treatment and exchange of civilian detainees in the same way there is for prisoners of war. Russia has, in some cases, claimed that the Ukrainian civilians it is holding are prisoners of war and should be recognized as such by Ukraine. Kyiv has been reluctant to do so because it could put civilians living in occupied areas of Ukraine at risk of being arbitrarily detained by Russia as it seeks to grow its pool for future exchanges. Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told CNN last year that Kyiv believes Russia has been taking Ukrainians hostage to use them as bargaining chips, and that he rejected the idea of exchanging civilians as part of a prisoner swap. Kyiv has rallied its allies to increase pressure on Russia over the issue and tried to get Moscow to agree to release the detained civilians through third countries, similar to the way some Ukrainian children have been returned with the help of Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican. Several international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have also repeatedly called on Moscow to unconditionally release its civilian detainees. Russia has ignored the pleas. The 'I want to go to my own' program is an attempt by Kyiv to get some of the detained civilians back without having to recognize them as prisoners of war. But human rights groups are urging the Ukrainian government to continue to press for unconditional release of civilians. 'Under international humanitarian law, it is not possible to talk about exchanging civilians. All civilians unlawfully detained must be released unconditionally,' said Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW). 'But in practice, things are a lot more difficult because Russia is not playing by the rules. For Ukrainian civilians, to be included on an exchange list is their main hope. I think the scheme is an attempt to find a way to do this,' she told CNN. Announcing the 1,000 for 1,000 exchange, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted as much. 'I would like to thank our law enforcement officers today for adding Russian saboteurs and collaborators to the exchange fund,' the president said, while also thanking Ukrainian soldiers for capturing Russian troops on the front lines. But it seems that the scheme did not yield the results Kyiv was hoping for. Petro Yatsenko from the Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War told CNN Ukraine did not know ahead of the time who was being returned. The headquarters said the returnees included a group of at least 60 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of criminal offenses unrelated to the war. The headquarters' deputy head, Andriy Yusov, told CNN many of them had been convicted by Ukrainian courts and were serving sentences in Ukrainian prisons when Russia launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion in February 2022 and occupied the areas where they were detained. After completing their sentences, Russian authorities were supposed to deport these prisoners from the occupied territories back to Ukraine. Instead, it kept them, unlawfully, in detention centers normally used for illegal immigrants and only released them as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner swap. The RussianHuman Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova described the convicted Ukrainian collaborators sent to Russia as 'political prisoners,' but did not give any more details on who they were or what would happen to them next. Moskalkova's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment. The 'I want to go to my own' website gives details of some those sent to Russia in the prisoner exchange, including the offenses they were convicted of. Many were serving years-long sentences for collaboration with Moscow. Some were convicted of supporting the invasion or sharing information with Russian troops. Most received sentences of between five and eight years in prison. But human rights lawyers say the Ukrainian collaboration law under which these people were sentenced is itself problematic. HRW has previously issued an extensive report criticizing the anti-collaboration law, calling it flawed. Gorbunova said the group analyzed close to 2,000 verdicts and that while there were genuine collaborators among them, a lot of them were 'people who, under international humanitarian law, should not have been prosecuted.' She said these included cases where there's been 'little or no harm done' and or where there was no intent to harm national security. Some of the cases involve people who had been working in public service in areas that were then occupied and who had simply continued doing their jobs. 'Helping people on the streets, people who are sick or have disabilities, distributing humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collect trash, that type of thing – they could be convicted of working for the occupation as collaborators,' she said. 'That is not to say that there are no actual collaborators who commit crimes against national security…who should be punished, (but) this legislation is so vague that essentially a very wide range of activities of people living and working under occupation could qualify as collaboration, which is troubling and problematic,' she said. While the initiative's website includes what it says are handwritten notes from each of the convicted collaborators indicating their wish to leave for Russia, human rights organizations say the way in which they have been disowned by their country is ethically dubious. Syniuk told CNN: 'These people are still Ukrainian citizens, and the wording that they have on the website is that they were exchanged for 'real Ukrainians'– that is very … not okay.' CNN's Victoria Butenko and Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting.
CNN
13 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Desperate to get its illegally detained civilians out of Russia, Kyiv offers Ukrainian collaborators in exchange
Ukraine sent dozens of its own citizens to Russia last month, releasing them from prisons in an attempt to secure the release of dozens of Ukrainian civilians held illegally in Russian jails – a move described by human rights activists as desperate and worrying. According to the Ukrainian government, 70 Ukrainian civilians convicted of collaborating with Russia were released as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow last month. Ukraine said all of them went into exile voluntarily, as part of a government scheme that gives anyone convicted of collaborating with Russia the option of being sent there. But human rights groups and international lawyers say the scheme is problematic, contradicts previous statements made by the Ukrainian government, and could potentially put more people at risk of being snatched by the Russians. 'I completely understand the sentiment, we all want the people (who are detained in Russia) to be released as quickly as possible and Russia has no will to do that… but the solution that is offered is definitely not the right one,' said Onysiia Syniuk, a legal analyst at Zmina, a Ukrainian human rights group. The program, called 'I want to go to my own,' was launched last year by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service and the parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights. A government website outlining the program includes photos and personal information of some of the 300 Ukrainian people that the government says have signed up to the program. The profiles of 31 of them are stamped with a picture of a suitcase and the words 'HAS LEFT,' with a note saying he or she 'left for Russia while at the same time real Ukrainians returned home.' According to Kyiv, at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are known to be detained in Russia, although the real number is likely to be much higher. Some 37,000 Ukrainians, including civilians, children and members of the military, are officially recognized as missing. Many have been detained in occupied territories, detained for months or even years without any charges or trial, and deported to Russia. They include activists, journalists, priests, politicians and community leaders as well as people who appear to have been snatched by Russian troops at random at checkpoints and other places in occupied Ukraine. The detention of civilians by an occupying power is illegal under international laws of conflict, except for in a few narrowly defined situations and with strict time limits. Because of that, there is no established legal framework for the treatment and exchange of civilian detainees in the same way there is for prisoners of war. Russia has, in some cases, claimed that the Ukrainian civilians it is holding are prisoners of war and should be recognized as such by Ukraine. Kyiv has been reluctant to do so because it could put civilians living in occupied areas of Ukraine at risk of being arbitrarily detained by Russia as it seeks to grow its pool for future exchanges. Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told CNN last year that Kyiv believes Russia has been taking Ukrainians hostage to use them as bargaining chips, and that he rejected the idea of exchanging civilians as part of a prisoner swap. Kyiv has rallied its allies to increase pressure on Russia over the issue and tried to get Moscow to agree to release the detained civilians through third countries, similar to the way some Ukrainian children have been returned with the help of Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican. Several international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have also repeatedly called on Moscow to unconditionally release its civilian detainees. Russia has ignored the pleas. The 'I want to go to my own' program is an attempt by Kyiv to get some of the detained civilians back without having to recognize them as prisoners of war. But human rights groups are urging the Ukrainian government to continue to press for unconditional release of civilians. 'Under international humanitarian law, it is not possible to talk about exchanging civilians. All civilians unlawfully detained must be released unconditionally,' said Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW). 'But in practice, things are a lot more difficult because Russia is not playing by the rules. For Ukrainian civilians, to be included on an exchange list is their main hope. I think the scheme is an attempt to find a way to do this,' she told CNN. Announcing the 1,000 for 1,000 exchange, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted as much. 'I would like to thank our law enforcement officers today for adding Russian saboteurs and collaborators to the exchange fund,' the president said, while also thanking Ukrainian soldiers for capturing Russian troops on the front lines. But it seems that the scheme did not yield the results Kyiv was hoping for. Petro Yatsenko from the Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War told CNN Ukraine did not know ahead of the time who was being returned. The headquarters said the returnees included a group of at least 60 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of criminal offenses unrelated to the war. The headquarters' deputy head, Andriy Yusov, told CNN many of them had been convicted by Ukrainian courts and were serving sentences in Ukrainian prisons when Russia launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion in February 2022 and occupied the areas where they were detained. After completing their sentences, Russian authorities were supposed to deport these prisoners from the occupied territories back to Ukraine. Instead, it kept them, unlawfully, in detention centers normally used for illegal immigrants and only released them as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner swap. The RussianHuman Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova described the convicted Ukrainian collaborators sent to Russia as 'political prisoners,' but did not give any more details on who they were or what would happen to them next. Moskalkova's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment. The 'I want to go to my own' website gives details of some those sent to Russia in the prisoner exchange, including the offenses they were convicted of. Many were serving years-long sentences for collaboration with Moscow. Some were convicted of supporting the invasion or sharing information with Russian troops. Most received sentences of between five and eight years in prison. But human rights lawyers say the Ukrainian collaboration law under which these people were sentenced is itself problematic. HRW has previously issued an extensive report criticizing the anti-collaboration law, calling it flawed. Gorbunova said the group analyzed close to 2,000 verdicts and that while there were genuine collaborators among them, a lot of them were 'people who, under international humanitarian law, should not have been prosecuted.' She said these included cases where there's been 'little or no harm done' and or where there was no intent to harm national security. Some of the cases involve people who had been working in public service in areas that were then occupied and who had simply continued doing their jobs. 'Helping people on the streets, people who are sick or have disabilities, distributing humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collect trash, that type of thing – they could be convicted of working for the occupation as collaborators,' she said. 'That is not to say that there are no actual collaborators who commit crimes against national security…who should be punished, (but) this legislation is so vague that essentially a very wide range of activities of people living and working under occupation could qualify as collaboration, which is troubling and problematic,' she said. While the initiative's website includes what it says are handwritten notes from each of the convicted collaborators indicating their wish to leave for Russia, human rights organizations say the way in which they have been disowned by their country is ethically dubious. Syniuk told CNN: 'These people are still Ukrainian citizens, and the wording that they have on the website is that they were exchanged for 'real Ukrainians'– that is very … not okay.' CNN's Victoria Butenko and Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting.
CNN
13 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Desperate to get its illegally detained civilians out of Russia, Kyiv offers Ukrainian collaborators in exchange
Ukraine sent dozens of its own citizens to Russia last month, releasing them from prisons in an attempt to secure the release of dozens of Ukrainian civilians held illegally in Russian jails – a move described by human rights activists as desperate and worrying. According to the Ukrainian government, 70 Ukrainian civilians convicted of collaborating with Russia were released as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow last month. Ukraine said all of them went into exile voluntarily, as part of a government scheme that gives anyone convicted of collaborating with Russia the option of being sent there. But human rights groups and international lawyers say the scheme is problematic, contradicts previous statements made by the Ukrainian government, and could potentially put more people at risk of being snatched by the Russians. 'I completely understand the sentiment, we all want the people (who are detained in Russia) to be released as quickly as possible and Russia has no will to do that… but the solution that is offered is definitely not the right one,' said Onysiia Syniuk, a legal analyst at Zmina, a Ukrainian human rights group. The program, called 'I want to go to my own,' was launched last year by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service and the parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights. A government website outlining the program includes photos and personal information of some of the 300 Ukrainian people that the government says have signed up to the program. The profiles of 31 of them are stamped with a picture of a suitcase and the words 'HAS LEFT,' with a note saying he or she 'left for Russia while at the same time real Ukrainians returned home.' According to Kyiv, at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are known to be detained in Russia, although the real number is likely to be much higher. Some 37,000 Ukrainians, including civilians, children and members of the military, are officially recognized as missing. Many have been detained in occupied territories, detained for months or even years without any charges or trial, and deported to Russia. They include activists, journalists, priests, politicians and community leaders as well as people who appear to have been snatched by Russian troops at random at checkpoints and other places in occupied Ukraine. The detention of civilians by an occupying power is illegal under international laws of conflict, except for in a few narrowly defined situations and with strict time limits. Because of that, there is no established legal framework for the treatment and exchange of civilian detainees in the same way there is for prisoners of war. Russia has, in some cases, claimed that the Ukrainian civilians it is holding are prisoners of war and should be recognized as such by Ukraine. Kyiv has been reluctant to do so because it could put civilians living in occupied areas of Ukraine at risk of being arbitrarily detained by Russia as it seeks to grow its pool for future exchanges. Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told CNN last year that Kyiv believes Russia has been taking Ukrainians hostage to use them as bargaining chips, and that he rejected the idea of exchanging civilians as part of a prisoner swap. Kyiv has rallied its allies to increase pressure on Russia over the issue and tried to get Moscow to agree to release the detained civilians through third countries, similar to the way some Ukrainian children have been returned with the help of Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican. Several international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have also repeatedly called on Moscow to unconditionally release its civilian detainees. Russia has ignored the pleas. The 'I want to go to my own' program is an attempt by Kyiv to get some of the detained civilians back without having to recognize them as prisoners of war. But human rights groups are urging the Ukrainian government to continue to press for unconditional release of civilians. 'Under international humanitarian law, it is not possible to talk about exchanging civilians. All civilians unlawfully detained must be released unconditionally,' said Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW). 'But in practice, things are a lot more difficult because Russia is not playing by the rules. For Ukrainian civilians, to be included on an exchange list is their main hope. I think the scheme is an attempt to find a way to do this,' she told CNN. Announcing the 1,000 for 1,000 exchange, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted as much. 'I would like to thank our law enforcement officers today for adding Russian saboteurs and collaborators to the exchange fund,' the president said, while also thanking Ukrainian soldiers for capturing Russian troops on the front lines. But it seems that the scheme did not yield the results Kyiv was hoping for. Petro Yatsenko from the Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War told CNN Ukraine did not know ahead of the time who was being returned. The headquarters said the returnees included a group of at least 60 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of criminal offenses unrelated to the war. The headquarters' deputy head, Andriy Yusov, told CNN many of them had been convicted by Ukrainian courts and were serving sentences in Ukrainian prisons when Russia launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion in February 2022 and occupied the areas where they were detained. After completing their sentences, Russian authorities were supposed to deport these prisoners from the occupied territories back to Ukraine. Instead, it kept them, unlawfully, in detention centers normally used for illegal immigrants and only released them as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner swap. The RussianHuman Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova described the convicted Ukrainian collaborators sent to Russia as 'political prisoners,' but did not give any more details on who they were or what would happen to them next. Moskalkova's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment. The 'I want to go to my own' website gives details of some those sent to Russia in the prisoner exchange, including the offenses they were convicted of. Many were serving years-long sentences for collaboration with Moscow. Some were convicted of supporting the invasion or sharing information with Russian troops. Most received sentences of between five and eight years in prison. But human rights lawyers say the Ukrainian collaboration law under which these people were sentenced is itself problematic. HRW has previously issued an extensive report criticizing the anti-collaboration law, calling it flawed. Gorbunova said the group analyzed close to 2,000 verdicts and that while there were genuine collaborators among them, a lot of them were 'people who, under international humanitarian law, should not have been prosecuted.' She said these included cases where there's been 'little or no harm done' and or where there was no intent to harm national security. Some of the cases involve people who had been working in public service in areas that were then occupied and who had simply continued doing their jobs. 'Helping people on the streets, people who are sick or have disabilities, distributing humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collect trash, that type of thing – they could be convicted of working for the occupation as collaborators,' she said. 'That is not to say that there are no actual collaborators who commit crimes against national security…who should be punished, (but) this legislation is so vague that essentially a very wide range of activities of people living and working under occupation could qualify as collaboration, which is troubling and problematic,' she said. While the initiative's website includes what it says are handwritten notes from each of the convicted collaborators indicating their wish to leave for Russia, human rights organizations say the way in which they have been disowned by their country is ethically dubious. Syniuk told CNN: 'These people are still Ukrainian citizens, and the wording that they have on the website is that they were exchanged for 'real Ukrainians'– that is very … not okay.' CNN's Victoria Butenko and Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting.
CNN
13 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Desperate to get its illegally detained civilians out of Russia, Kyiv offers Ukrainian collaborators in exchange
Ukraine sent dozens of its own citizens to Russia last month, releasing them from prisons in an attempt to secure the release of dozens of Ukrainian civilians held illegally in Russian jails – a move described by human rights activists as desperate and worrying. According to the Ukrainian government, 70 Ukrainian civilians convicted of collaborating with Russia were released as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow last month. Ukraine said all of them went into exile voluntarily, as part of a government scheme that gives anyone convicted of collaborating with Russia the option of being sent there. But human rights groups and international lawyers say the scheme is problematic, contradicts previous statements made by the Ukrainian government, and could potentially put more people at risk of being snatched by the Russians. 'I completely understand the sentiment, we all want the people (who are detained in Russia) to be released as quickly as possible and Russia has no will to do that… but the solution that is offered is definitely not the right one,' said Onysiia Syniuk, a legal analyst at Zmina, a Ukrainian human rights group. The program, called 'I want to go to my own,' was launched last year by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service and the parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights. A government website outlining the program includes photos and personal information of some of the 300 Ukrainian people that the government says have signed up to the program. The profiles of 31 of them are stamped with a picture of a suitcase and the words 'HAS LEFT,' with a note saying he or she 'left for Russia while at the same time real Ukrainians returned home.' According to Kyiv, at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are known to be detained in Russia, although the real number is likely to be much higher. Some 37,000 Ukrainians, including civilians, children and members of the military, are officially recognized as missing. Many have been detained in occupied territories, detained for months or even years without any charges or trial, and deported to Russia. They include activists, journalists, priests, politicians and community leaders as well as people who appear to have been snatched by Russian troops at random at checkpoints and other places in occupied Ukraine. The detention of civilians by an occupying power is illegal under international laws of conflict, except for in a few narrowly defined situations and with strict time limits. Because of that, there is no established legal framework for the treatment and exchange of civilian detainees in the same way there is for prisoners of war. Russia has, in some cases, claimed that the Ukrainian civilians it is holding are prisoners of war and should be recognized as such by Ukraine. Kyiv has been reluctant to do so because it could put civilians living in occupied areas of Ukraine at risk of being arbitrarily detained by Russia as it seeks to grow its pool for future exchanges. Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told CNN last year that Kyiv believes Russia has been taking Ukrainians hostage to use them as bargaining chips, and that he rejected the idea of exchanging civilians as part of a prisoner swap. Kyiv has rallied its allies to increase pressure on Russia over the issue and tried to get Moscow to agree to release the detained civilians through third countries, similar to the way some Ukrainian children have been returned with the help of Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican. Several international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have also repeatedly called on Moscow to unconditionally release its civilian detainees. Russia has ignored the pleas. The 'I want to go to my own' program is an attempt by Kyiv to get some of the detained civilians back without having to recognize them as prisoners of war. But human rights groups are urging the Ukrainian government to continue to press for unconditional release of civilians. 'Under international humanitarian law, it is not possible to talk about exchanging civilians. All civilians unlawfully detained must be released unconditionally,' said Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW). 'But in practice, things are a lot more difficult because Russia is not playing by the rules. For Ukrainian civilians, to be included on an exchange list is their main hope. I think the scheme is an attempt to find a way to do this,' she told CNN. Announcing the 1,000 for 1,000 exchange, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted as much. 'I would like to thank our law enforcement officers today for adding Russian saboteurs and collaborators to the exchange fund,' the president said, while also thanking Ukrainian soldiers for capturing Russian troops on the front lines. But it seems that the scheme did not yield the results Kyiv was hoping for. Petro Yatsenko from the Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War told CNN Ukraine did not know ahead of the time who was being returned. The headquarters said the returnees included a group of at least 60 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of criminal offenses unrelated to the war. The headquarters' deputy head, Andriy Yusov, told CNN many of them had been convicted by Ukrainian courts and were serving sentences in Ukrainian prisons when Russia launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion in February 2022 and occupied the areas where they were detained. After completing their sentences, Russian authorities were supposed to deport these prisoners from the occupied territories back to Ukraine. Instead, it kept them, unlawfully, in detention centers normally used for illegal immigrants and only released them as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner swap. The RussianHuman Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova described the convicted Ukrainian collaborators sent to Russia as 'political prisoners,' but did not give any more details on who they were or what would happen to them next. Moskalkova's office did not respond to CNN's request for comment. The 'I want to go to my own' website gives details of some those sent to Russia in the prisoner exchange, including the offenses they were convicted of. Many were serving years-long sentences for collaboration with Moscow. Some were convicted of supporting the invasion or sharing information with Russian troops. Most received sentences of between five and eight years in prison. But human rights lawyers say the Ukrainian collaboration law under which these people were sentenced is itself problematic. HRW has previously issued an extensive report criticizing the anti-collaboration law, calling it flawed. Gorbunova said the group analyzed close to 2,000 verdicts and that while there were genuine collaborators among them, a lot of them were 'people who, under international humanitarian law, should not have been prosecuted.' She said these included cases where there's been 'little or no harm done' and or where there was no intent to harm national security. Some of the cases involve people who had been working in public service in areas that were then occupied and who had simply continued doing their jobs. 'Helping people on the streets, people who are sick or have disabilities, distributing humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collect trash, that type of thing – they could be convicted of working for the occupation as collaborators,' she said. 'That is not to say that there are no actual collaborators who commit crimes against national security…who should be punished, (but) this legislation is so vague that essentially a very wide range of activities of people living and working under occupation could qualify as collaboration, which is troubling and problematic,' she said. While the initiative's website includes what it says are handwritten notes from each of the convicted collaborators indicating their wish to leave for Russia, human rights organizations say the way in which they have been disowned by their country is ethically dubious. Syniuk told CNN: 'These people are still Ukrainian citizens, and the wording that they have on the website is that they were exchanged for 'real Ukrainians'– that is very … not okay.' CNN's Victoria Butenko and Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting.
CNN
16-02-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Ukrainians are fearful any Trump-brokered ceasefire will be full of concessions and false promises
Iryna Danilovich disappeared while returning from work in April 2022. It would be two weeks before Russian authorities admitted she was in their custody. The human rights activist and nurse was detained in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, accused of illegal possession of explosives and sentenced to seven years in prison. In her trial, Danilovich testified that she was tortured during her detention. She has since been deported to a notoriously cruel women's penal colony in Zelenokumsk, southern Russia. She suffers from constant headaches and her health continues to deteriorate – yet she is not allowed to sit or lie down during the day, according to human rights monitoring group Zmina. Ukraine has always called its areas under Russian control 'temporarily occupied territories,' insisting it will eventually regain control over them. But that hope is being crushed now. This week, US President Donald Trump suggested it was 'unlikely' Ukraine would get back much of its occupied land in the peace negotiations he intends to hold with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Danilovich's case – and she is just one of thousands Kyiv says are detained in Russia – shows what is at stake for Ukraine. Trump's comment came after he held a 90-minute phone call with Putin on Wednesday, and it sparked panic across the country, where few believe Putin would negotiate in good faith. Yuliya Kazdobina, a foreign policy expert at Ukrainian Prism, a think tank, said she doesn't believe the Russian leader wants peace. 'We already had so many years of negotiations with the Russian side,' she said. Russia has a history of striking and violating agreements with Ukraine going back decades. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees from the United States, United Kingdom and Russia that they would respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. In 2015, after illegally annexing Crimea and sparking the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Moscow signed a ceasefire agreement only to then repeatedly violate it and then launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine seven years later. 'We know that Russia is very duplicitous, and they can play nice, but when it comes to actually making concessions and making peace, they never… make any concessions,' Kazdobina told CNN. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the Trump-Putin call by saying his country would not accept a peace deal struck between the US and Russia without Kyiv's involvement. 'As an independent country we simply cannot accept any agreements without us. And I articulate this very clearly to our partners. We will not accept any bilateral negotiations on Ukraine without us,' Zelensky said, adding that the fact that Trump spoke to Putin first was 'not pleasant.' And Ukrainians seem to agree with their leader. Speaking to CNN in Kyiv, student Nazar Voloshenko said that any talks that could lead to Ukraine losing further territory would be disastrous for the country. 'We may be left without the currently temporarily occupied territories, without parts of the Kherson region, Zaporizhzhia region and the long-suffering Crimea,' he said. 'We must take back what is rightfully ours.' Russian forces currently occupy nearly 20% of Ukraine's territory, up from the roughly 7% it controlled before launching its unprovoked full-scale invasion nearly three years ago. According to Ukrainian officials, some 6 million people, including 1 million children, live under Russian occupation, in what the United Nations has described as a 'bleak human rights situation.' Crimea has been under Russian control since Moscow illegally annexed it in 2014. Since then, Russia has imposed a brutal and repressive regime, stomping out any sign of opposition. Maksym Vishchyk, a lawyer at Global Rights Compliance, a non-profit that advises the Ukrainian authorities on investigating and prosecuting international crimes, said Moscow has repeated the same pattern across other occupied territories. 'When Russia occupied the Crimea peninsula, it commenced a campaign of systematic targeting of communities or individuals it perceived as those who became an obstacle in the Russification campaign … with devastating effects on the social fabric in general, but also communities, families and individuals,' he told CNN. 'And Crimea has been kind of their playbook. Policies and patterns and tactics (Russia) applied in Crimea were then applied as well in other occupied territories. So, we see essentially the same patterns in all occupied territories, both since 2014 and since 2022.' The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has repeatedly reported the myriad human rights violations committed by Russia in occupied Ukraine – from unlawful detentions to sexual abuse to forcing people to accept Russian citizenship and sending their children to Russian schools and training programs. Russia has repeatedly denied accusations of human rights abuses. Financial consultant Oleksandr Sokhatskyi told CNN he thinks any deal would be unacceptable if Ukraine's borders are changed from what they were before the war because of the human cost of years of unnecessary battle. 'Given how many victims this war has already had, and to end it on someone else's conditions… then why did these (Ukrainian soldiers) die and why did they defend these territories?' he said. Soldiers fighting on the frontlines were likewise skeptical that negotiations between Trump and Putin could yield a result that would be palatable to many Ukrainians. Volodymyr Sablyn, a battalion commander in the 66th mechanized brigade, who is fighting near Lyman in the east of the country, said that having Russia take over some of Ukraine's territory could have dangerous consequences. 'It will set a precedent and show Russia that they can attack any country, take its territory and make it theirs with impunity in the future,' he said, adding that Russia could soon turn their focus on other smaller countries in its vicinity. Putin has repeatedly made his goals clear: He wants to gain control over the entirety of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. But many in Ukraine are worried that even if he initially agrees to a ceasefire, he will ultimately instigate further fighting to achieve his endgame. 'No one and nothing will stop Putin from attacking us again and occupying another region or several more. If Europe and America don't help us, then making peace now will most likely lead to war in a few years,' Sablyn said. Dariya Tarasova-Markina contributed to this report.
