In August 2016, the Russian invaders illegally detained Andriy Zakhtei in the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea and in February 2018 he was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. Until February 10, 2023, he was serving an illegal sentence in the territory of the occupied Crimea, and immediately after that, under escort, he was taken to the territory of the Rostov region to a temporary detention facility for foreign citizens.
In March 2023, the State Migration Service of Ukraine refused to issue a certificate to Andriy Zakhtei to return to Ukraine, therefore, at the moment, the only document proving his identity and Ukrainian citizenship is an internal Ukrainian passport, which does not include a photo when he reached 45 years old, since he at that time was serving an unlawful sentence.
Since February 2023, the Russian court has already twice appointed a several-month period for Zakhtei’s detention in an institution for foreigners, referring to his lack of proper documents proving his identity, and Latvia’s consent to his admission to its territory.
The Russians categorically do not want to transfer Andriy Zakhtei from Russian territory directly to Ukraine through the Kolotylivka-Pokrovka checkpoint, so the only possibility is to transfer him to the territory of a third country for further return to Ukraine.
For several months now, difficult communication has been going on with the participation of Zakhtei’s lawyers from Ukraine and Russia, and finally it was possible to agree on his deportation through Latvia in mid-June of this year.
Unfortunately, we have quite frequent cases when the Latvian side does not allow citizens of Ukraine to pass through the state border common with Russia, referring to the lack of proper documents. In particular, such a case was in early June, when the Latvian border guards refused a citizen of Ukraine, who, according to the verdict of the occupation court, had been serving a sentence for a criminal offense in the territory of the occupied Crimea since 2014, referring to the fact that he did not have a photo in his passport pasted into him upon reaching 25 or 45 years old.
To prevent such a situation from befalling the political prisoner Andriy Zakhtei, his lawyer and lawyer of the Crimean Tar Resource Center Volodymyr Liashenko, on June 7, 2023, addressed the Ambassador of Ukraine in Latvia Anatolii Kutsevol with a letter in which he asks for help in resolving the issue of allowing Zakhtei across the Latvian state border to return to Ukraine.
In particular, in the letter Volodymyr Liashenko asks to focus the attention of the Latvian side on the fact that Andriy Zakhtei is not a criminal offender, but has the status of a person illegally deprived of liberty by the occupation Russian regime, recognized by Ukraine and the European Parliament in the resolutions of October 05, 2017 14 June 2018, and in this regard, asks to consider the situation with the deportation of Zakhtei given his status as a political prisoner.
In addition, the lawyer will ask the ambassador to inform the Latvian border guards in advance that Andrii has only a passport of a citizen of Ukraine in his hands, where a photo is not pasted when he reached 45 years old, since at that time he was illegally held by Russia in places of captivity in the territory of the occupied Crimea, in order to this circumstance. did not become a formal reason for refusal.
Today we cannot predict with absolute certainty exactly how the situation will develop immediately during Andriy’s arrival at the Russian-Latvian border, but we hope that the information provided by the lawyer to the Ukrainian Embassy in Latvia will help to work out this issue with the Latvian side in advance, and the prisoner of the Kremlin is already in this month, finally return from Russian captivity to the family!