Kyiv offers Ukrainian collaborators in exchange for citizens in Russia

Kyiv offers Ukrainian collaborators in exchange for citizens in Russia

CNN - Last month, Ukraine sent dozens of its own citizens to Russia to dismiss them from prisons and, in return, to secure the release of numerous illegal Ukrainian civilians in Russian prisons. This step is described by human rights activists as desperate and worrying.

Details on the prisoner freedom of prisoner

According to the Ukrainian government, as part of the 1,000 prison exchange 70 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of collaboration with Russia. The Ukrainian government said that all of these people voluntarily went exile as part of a state program that enables convicted collaborators to live in Russia.

criticism of the procedure

However, human rights groups and international lawyers express concerns about this program. They argue that it is problematic to contradict the Ukrainian government's earlier statements and possibly put more people at risk of being kidnapped by Russian troops. Onysiia Syniuk, a legal analyst of the Ukrainian human rights group Zmina, said: "I understand the wish completely; we all want people in Russia to be released as quickly as possible. But the solution offered is definitely not the right one."

program "I want to go to my own"

The program "I want to go to my own" was launched last year by the Ukraine coordination center for the treatment of prisoners of war, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service and the Parliamentary Human Rights Officer. A government website for this program shows photos and personal data from some of the 300 Ukrainian citizens who have registered for the program. The profiles of 31 of these people wear a picture of a suitcase with the words "Has left" and an indication that they "went to Russia while real Ukrainians have returned home."

The situation of the Ukrainian civilians in Russia

legal challenges

The detention of civilians by an occupying power is illegal according to international conflict law, unless there is a closely defined exception and strict time limits apply. Due to this situation, there is no established legal framework for the treatment and exchange of civil prisoners, as is the case with prisoners of war. In some cases, Russia has claimed that the Ukrainian civilians who hold it are prisoners of war and should be recognized as such. However, Kiev hesitates to do this, since civilians who live in occupied areas could expose the risk to be arrested by Russia, while Moscow is trying to increase its selection for future exchange actions.

urgency and international reactions

The Ukrainian human rights officer DMYTRO Lubinets told CNN that Kiev believed that Russia thought Ukrainians hosted it to use them as a negotiating extent. The Ukrainian government has mobilized its allies to put pressure on Russia and tried to move Moscow to released the civilians on third countries, similar to how it happened in the return of some Ukrainian children with the help of Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican. Various international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), have repeatedly asked Moscow to unconditionally released its civilian prisoners. Russia ignored this appeal.

results of the prisoner exchange

The program "I want to go to my own" is an attempt to get some of the imprisoned civilians back without having to recognize them as prisoners of war. However, the Ukrainian government call for human rights groups to continue to push for the unconditional release of civilians. Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher for Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said: "According to international humanitarian law, it is not possible to talk about an exchange of civilians. All wrongly imprisoned civilians must be released unconditionally." She added that in practice it was much more difficult because Russia does not play according to the rules.

The fact that the initiative has not yet brought the desired results for Kiev can be seen from the fact that the coordination center for the treatment of prisoners of war did not know in advance who would return. According to an official of the headquarters, the returnees were at least 60 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of criminal offenses who had nothing to do with the war. Russian authorities should have deported them from the occupied areas, but they were illegally in custody and only released them as part of the prisoner exchange.

political prisoners or collaborators?

The Russian human rights officer Tatyana Moskalkova referred to the convicted Ukrainian collaborators who were sent to Russia as "political prisoners", but indicated no further details about who they were or what would happen to them. The website "I want my own" provides details about some of the persons caught in the prisoner exchange to Russia, including the offenses, which is why they were convicted. Many received years of prison for collaboration with Moscow.

problematic collaboration law

Human rights lawyers argue that the Ukrainian Collaboration Act, to which these people were convicted, is problematic itself. HRW has published a comprehensive report in the past, which criticizes the anti -collaboration law and describes it as faulty. Gorbunova explained that the group had analyzed almost 2,000 judgments and found that there were real collaborators among them, but many of them are "people who should not have been pursued by international humanitarian law."

It stated that these were cases in which "little or no damage" was caused, or in which there was no intention to endanger national security. Some of these cases concern people who worked in public administration in now occupied areas and simply continued their work. "Aids on the streets, people who are sick or have a disability, distribution of humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collect waste - such people could be convicted because they work as collaborators for the crew," she said

Although the initiative's website indicates that handwritten notes indicate their intention of going to Russia by each of the convicted collaborators, human rights organizations express concerns about ethical questionability with which these people have been written off by their country. Syniuk told CNN: "These people are still Ukrainian citizens. The wording on the website that they were exchanged for 'real Ukrainians' is very ... not okay."

The reporting of CNN was supported by Victoria Butenko and Svitlana Vlasova.