Iryna Danilovych has asked for efforts to be intensified in the New Year to secure the release of all those political prisoners who have ended up in Russian captivity because of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The imprisoned Crimean human rights defender and civic journalist has also stressed that the release of civilian hostages should be separated from other items on any peace plan under negotiation.
Danilovych is serving an internationally condemned 7-year sentence in a Russian prison colony with appalling conditions and “Gestapo-like treatment by the prison staff”. Under such circumstances, her words could only be passed on by family members to Crimean Tribunal. The latter quotes her as saying: “The world has already shown what it can do to return Ukrainian children, but it is not the time to stop there. It’s time to show what it can do to return Ukrainian women and the elderly who have been taken to Russian prisons.” For what she called civilized countries for whom humanism and human rights are a priority, the release of Ukrainians from Russian prisons should have the status of a ‘preliminary condition’ to be fulfilled prior to the commencement of any negotiations.
Iryna also expressed gratitude to all those people and organizations who are seeking her release. As reported, she has had serious health issues, which the prison staff have failed to address, and says that she suffers from unrelenting headaches and ringing, etc. in her ears. She is unable, therefore, to answer all the letters which she receives but is immensely grateful for such warmth and messages of support from people all over the world.
Even in the highly contentious 28-point ‘peace plan’ put forward, possibly from an original in Russian, by US President Donald Trump’s administration, there was a point about the release of “civilian detainees and hostages” and, seemingly, prisoners of war. Judging by media reports, the wording was, however, extremely vague and would have certainly failed to secure the release of Iryna Danilovych and hundreds of Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners. The number of such political prisoners is also increasing by the day as many civilian hostages, abducted by the Russian invading forces, are later sentenced on fabricated charges brought after months or years of being held incommunicado and without any status.
There is, almost certainly, no current peace plan, not entailing Ukraine’s effective capitulation and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory which Russia has been unable to seize, that Moscow will accept. There is, in fact, nothing to suggest that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has any interest in making any peace deal, certainly none in making an agreement that would be kept.
Russia has already caused the deaths of a number of civilian hostages, including 27-year-old journalist Victoria Roshchyna and 63-year-old Dniprorudne Mayor Yevhen Matvieiev; of prisoners of war, like Oleksandr Ischenko and political prisoners (60-year-old Dzhemil Gafarov, Kostiantyn Shyrinh, Oleksandr Markov and others) The lives of a number of others are in immediate and very real danger. For this reason alone, it is unacceptable to make the release of illegally held prisoners contingent upon a ‘peace deal’ that they may not live to see signed.
There are, however, other reasons. Although Russia is in grave violation of international law through its torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war, it is, at least, admitting to their imprisonment. It has, however, used insane ‘terrorism’ or similar charges against a huge number of such POWs and passed long sentences. The situation with civilian hostages is more difficult as Russia’s seizure of them, and imprisonment on occupied territory or in Russia, are totally prohibited, and in very many cases, the aggressor state is simply not admitting that the men and women are in Russian captivity. Some of these hostages, it should be said, were first seized in occupied Donbas long before Russia’s began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The situation with political prisoners is also difficult since Russia has made it impossible to live in occupied Crimea or other occupied territory without taking Russian citizenship and then claims that the Crimean Tatar or other Ukrainian political prisoners are ‘Russians’ and refuses to add them to prisoner exchange lists.
Russia is not just abusing ‘terrorism’ legislation to imprison Ukrainian prisoners of war. It began fabricating ‘terrorism’, ‘sabotage’ and ‘spying’ charges against Ukrainians, especially Crimeans, back in 2014, with conveyor-belt ‘trials’ on terrorism charges used since 2017 as a weapon to crush the Crimean Tatar human rights movement. There has been a massive increase in all Russian prosecutions for supposed ‘spying’ or ‘treason’, with Ukrainians abducted from occupied territory sentenced on an almost daily basis to 12 years or more, sometimes merely for making donations to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The political will is needed to put pressure on Russia to release such men and women, many of whom faced savage torture and / or have been held in horrific conditions for years.
All of these issues need to be resolved as a matter of urgency, with the position needed being that all illegally held civilian hostages, political prisoners and prisoners of war should be released unconditionally. There are many Crimean Tatar or other Ukrainian political prisoners or civilian hostages who are already in their 70s (like Volodymyr Ananiev, Halyna Dovhopola and abducted Spanish volunteer Mariano Garcia Calatayud [Mario] or whose lives are in danger now (Amet Suleimanov; Tofik Abdulgaziev; Lenur Khalilov and many others).
They need our voices to ensure that their plight is recognized as needing attention now, not as a point in a ‘peace deal’ that may take a very long time and with which Russia is most unlikely to comply.
Details about the abduction and show trial of Iryna Danilovych here
