Today, 13 September, the exchange of prisoners took place, 49 more Ukrainians and Ukrainian women returned home.
In particular, among those released there is a 26-year-old Crimean Tatar young woman, political prisoner Lenie Umerova.
We sincerely congratulate Lenie on her return to her native land, as well as her relatives, who finally waited for the happy moment.
Recall that on 4 December 2022, Russian security forces detained Lenie Umerova after crossing the Georgian-Russian border allegedly for violation of the rules of the regime zone and for lack of Russian documents. The girl was travelling from Kyiv to the occupied Crimea due to the deteriorating health condition of her father.
Until March 16, Lenie was held in the Center for Temporary Detention of Foreign Citizens near Vladikavkaz. The occupiers found the girl guilty of ‘violation of the state border regime’ (part 1 of article 18 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation) and fined her 2 thousand rubles. After that, she was repeatedly assigned new administrative arrests under various pretexts, in particular, allegedly because of ‘disobedience to law enforcement officers’. At this time, Lenie’s passport of a Ukrainian citizen was taken away from her.
On 4 May, her parents tried to visit Lenie in the detention centre, but they were not allowed in, saying that she was no longer there. They physically travelled around various Russian ‘services’ looking for her. As a result, it became known that Lenie was already in Moscow in Lefortovo. On 5 May, the Lefortovo court in Moscow arrested the girl for two months on suspicion of ‘high treason’ (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Subsequently, the period of detention was repeatedly extended.
As it turned out, the occupants held the girl under the pretext of ‘administrative arrests’ in order to prepare a criminal case against Ukrainian citizen Lenie Umerova.