This figure does not include prisoners of war.
Some of the children at the Qatari embassy in Moscow
Up to 28,000 civilian Ukrainians are now being held by Russia. And 90% of prisoners of war are tortured in the Russian Federation. To return civilian hostages, a coalition must be created countries. About this forum “Ukraine. The year is 2024,” said Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets.
“The Russian Federation raises the rights of our citizens every day. A separate issue is the rights of our prisoners of war… 3,135 Ukrainian citizens and 147 civilian hostages were returned. But again, every day we understand that our prisoners of war who are on the territory of the Russian Federation are under torture. 90% go through torture. These are not our figures. These are figures including, for example, UN representatives,” he said.
However, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only organization with a unique mandate to protect the rights of prisoners of war, have been unable to get to the place where the Russians are holding our prisoners of war for ten years.
“As a result, you you see in what condition we are returning our heroes from Russian captivity,” he recalled.
Another problem is civilian hostages, citizens of Ukraine, who need to be returned.
“If there is some progress regarding children, regarding prisoners of war, of course, there are exchange processes. What to do with civilians? According to our unofficial data, approximately 28 thousand citizens of Ukraine are in Russian dungeons. Journalists, representatives of local government, church representatives, international representatives. Think about it “, three representatives of the OSCE organization were officially detained: two in the Donetsk region, one in Lugansk. For several years we have not been able to fire them. And all this time the Russian Federation has been a member of the OSCE,” he said.
Lubinets emphasized that the exchange of civilians for civilians is prohibited by international humanitarian law
“We are already looking for new approaches. Can we do this on our own? No, we cannot… We are looking for countries that are officially ready to join the process of returning civilian hostages. To this day, I can publicly inform you that during the last trip to Qatar it was said that they were ready to try their efforts to return the civilian hostages. We need to create an international coalition like we did for the return of Ukrainian children. This must be done on the issue of the return of civilian hostages,” called Lubinets.
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The Commissioner for Human Rights also emphasized that even if Ukraine returns one kidnapped and deported child every day, then the return All will need 55 years.Qatar is helping in the return of the children.