41-year-old Ivan Yatskin was taken prisoner by the Russian FSB in October 2019, and taken to the notorious Lefortovo Prison in Moscow

One of the many hostages held by the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ who was not freed on 29 December 2019 was 23-year-old Serhiy Rusinov

71-year-old Zinaida Maltseva spent 19 months imprisoned in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ despite the lack of any grounds and her severe disability, which makes it impossible for her to walk without a wheelchair or crutches

Oleh Halaziuk, one of the two Ukrainian bloggers released in the prisoner exchange on 29 December 2019, has given details of his imprisonment in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’

68-year-old Vitaly Atamanchuk remains imprisoned in the Russian proxy ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ almost 18 months after he, his 70-year-old wife and their son were seized by the militants

Since Russia is in violation of international law by applying its legislation on occupied territory, and 64-year-old Halyna Dovhopola is charged with gathering information for Ukraine, there seems every reason to consider her the latest of Russia’s many Ukrainian political prisoners..

Among the ‘terrorists’ mentioned by many Ukrainian media as having been handed over to the Russian proxy Donbas ’republics’ was 69-year-old Mykola Ruban who had spent almost five years in a Ukrainian prison for a crime he probably did not commit and that very likely never happened

Oleh Prykhodko is not only illegally held prisoner in Russian-occupied Crimea on highly implausible ‘terrorism’ charges, but is also being prevented from seeing a Ukrainian priest. According to his lawyer, Nazim Sheikhmambet, Prykhodko has twice been stopped from having such visits.

There is joy for the released POWs and hostages on this day, but also awareness of how many others have not been released and of the problems that Ukraine faces given the huge and highly divisive ransoms that Russia and its proxy ‘republics’ demand

By the exchange “of all for all” mentioned at the Normandy Summit, Putin meant only those ‘confirmed’. Now even the exchange of those 77 of 250 hostages held by the Donbas militants may be in danger

40-year-old Denis Kashuk set off for work in a Simferopol advertising agency on 17 December and vanished

Nothing has been heard of 28-year-old Hryhoriy Sinchenko since militants from the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR] brought him, covered in blood, to his grandmother’s home and carried out a search

It is almost a year since Oleksandr Marchenko was seized by the so-called ‘security service’ of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and subjected to horrific levels of torture before being illegally handed over to the Russian FSB

(82-year-old Ayshe Seitmuratova, veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, Soviet dissident and historian, was detained on Friday evening on the administrative border between Russian-occupied Crimea and mainland Ukraine )Updated)

54-year-old Valery Matyushenko has been imprisoned in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ since 15 July 2017. He and his family had never concealed their pro-Ukrainian views

The scenario of planted explosives, daubed with illegally obtained DNA traces, which is unfolding in the prosecution of Ukrainian activist Oleh Prykhodko, has already been used against at least three Ukrainian political prisoners whom Russia designated as ‘saboteurs’

72-year-old Vladimir Morgunov was accused, among other things, of informing Ukraine about the deployment of military technology and men near the border with Ukraine

The self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [‘DPR’] has sentenced 48-year-old nurse Marina Chuikova to 11 years’ imprisonment on supposed ‘spying’ charges

“Why should I leave? I am on my land”, 61-year-old Ukrainian activist Oleh Prykhodko asked after the Russian FSB’s last search of his home in Crimea, over which the Ukrainian flag flies. The FSB have now returned and arrested him

21-year-old Volodymyr Voskoboinyk has been ‘sentenced’ to 30 years’ imprisonment essentially for his military training and activities