In order to advocate for the release of civilian prisoners and their further social protection, our NGO held meetings with the OSCE and UN Missions. The head of the "Association of relatives of political prisoners of the Kremlin" Igor Kotelianets met with representatives of the Ukraine Monitoring Initiative OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which is the main institution of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. 

We discussed different issues of civilian prisoners, in particular:

• Absence/necessity of a solution/mechanism for the release of civilian detainees.
• The need for access by observers (for example, the ICRC) to places of detention in the Russian Federation.
• The work of the International Platform for the Release of Civilians Unreasonably Detained by the Russian Federation.
• Social and legal support of victims and their families;
• The work of the commission under the Ministry of Reintegration.
• Arrests of civilians who return to the occupied territories, for example, for property reasons.
• The case of Valery Matyushenko (recently released civilian).
• Courts operating in the occupied territory.

These meetings were managed as a part of  thework on an important area with the support of the International Renaissance Fund: we are creating an algorithm for quickly obtaining the status of illegally imprisoned for Ukrainian civilians who were imprisoned by the occupiers.

This publication was compiled with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. It’s content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation.

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