Citizen of Ukraine Andriy Zakhtei , who was locked up in the prison cell for 4 days by the decision of the Neklinovsky District Court of the Rostov Region, was returned today to the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens, where stay is not much different from serving a sentence in a colony.
Recall that Andriy Zakhtei was detained by the FSB of the Russian Federation on the night of August 6-7, 2016 in the occupied Crimea and illegally sentenced to 6.5 years in prison in the framework of the case of the so-called Crimean saboteurs fabricated by Russia.
Together with him, Yevhen Panov, who was also sentenced to 8 years in a strict regime colony, was involved in this case, but he was released on September 7, 2019 during the exchange of prisoners according to the 35 for 35 formula. Among those released that day were political prisoners Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Volodymyr Balukh, Roman Sushchenko, Mykola Karpiuk, Stanislav Klykh, Pavlo Hryb, Artur Panov, Edem Bekirov, Mykola Syzanovych, as well as sailors captured by Russia near the Kerch Strait.
Andriy Zakhtei was unlucky enough not to be included in that list, and he was forced to fully serve the illegal 6.5 years of imprisonment in a colony on the territory of the occupied Crimea. On February 10, 2023, his term of imprisonment expired, but the Russians transported him under guard to the territory of the Rostov region and forcibly took him to the Temporary Stay Center for Foreign Citizens, where he is kept closed while preparing documents for his deportation from the territory of the Russian Federation.
Andriy Zakhtei‘s Ukrainian passport was unlawfully confiscated in Crimea during his detention and remained in the case materials, and he does not have other documents confirming his identity and Ukrainian citizenship. Andriy Zakhtei‘s wife and lawyer of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Volodymyr Liashenko, from the very beginning of Andriy’s transfer to the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens, began to carry out measures to transfer him to the controlled territory of Ukraine.
Despite all the efforts of his wife and lawyer, over the several weeks of his stay at the temporary stay center, the Ukrainian side did not prepare an appropriate document for Zakhtei to return him to Ukraine, which in a certain way hinders resolving the issue of his return to Ukraine.
At the same time, the Russian side is constantly trying to put pressure on him in order, perhaps, to force him to participate in the aggression against Ukraine. On March 7, 2023, Zakhtei was placed in a temporary detention center for 4 days of administrative arrest for disobeying the lawful demand of an official of the internal affairs bodies authorized to exercise the functions of control and supervision in the field of migration, in connection with the performance of his official duties (h 1.1, article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation).
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center, which systematically and constantly deals with issues related to the fate of Ukrainian political prisoners, notes that, unfortunately, in Ukraine there is still no real algorithm for documenting Ukrainian citizens, including political prisoners who leave places of deprivation of liberty in temporarily occupied territories or on the territory of the Russian Federation. This actually multiplies by zero all the efforts of human rights activists to facilitate the transfer of released political prisoners to the controlled territory of Ukraine after their release from places of punishment.
We hope that in the near future all necessary steps will be taken to rectify this situation and all political prisoners who will be released from places of detention in the temporarily occupied territories or in the territory of the Russian Federation will have a real opportunity to quickly receive the necessary Ukrainian documents for their speedy return to controlled territory of Ukraine.