A citizen of Ukraine Andrey Zakhtey was detained in 2016 in the occupied Crimea and illegally sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for allegedly illegal possession and transportation of ammunition and weapons, preparation of sabotage as part of a group and forgery of documents.
On February 10, 2023, his term of stay in a penal colony in Crimea ended, but he was not released, but was transported under guard to the territory of the Rostov Region and on February 11 was forcibly taken to an institution for the temporary stay of foreign citizens, where he, in accordance with the decision of the local court dated February 15, 2023, is in closed mode during the preparation of documents for his deportation from the territory of the Russian Federation.
It should be noted that actually being in an institution for the temporary stay of foreign citizens on the territory of the Rostov region is not much different from serving a sentence in a colony.
The Ukrainian passport of Andrey Zakhtey was illegally confiscated from him in Crimea during his detention and remained in the materials of the case, while he does not have other documents confirming the identity and Ukrainian citizenship of Andrey Zakhtey.
Andrey Zakhtey’s wife and lawyer of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center Volodymyr Liashenko, from the very beginning of Andrii‘s transfer to an institution for temporary stay of foreign citizens, began to carry out measures to transfer him to the controlled territory of Ukraine. But after almost a month of communications, it turned out that, unfortunately, at the moment there is not even a real algorithm for documenting citizens of Ukraine, including political prisoners who leave places of detention in the temporarily occupied territories or in the territory of the Russian Federation. This actually multiplies by zero all the efforts of the family and lawyers of Andrii Zakhtey to transfer him to the controlled territory of Ukraine after his release from the places of punishment.
At the same time, the administration of the institution for the temporary stay of foreign citizens puts pressure on the citizen of Ukraine Andrey Zakhtey and carries out provocations against him in order to worsen the conditions of his stay in places of captivity. At the request of his family and lawyers, Andrei tries to avoid any conflict with the administration, but this does not always work. For example, on March 7, 2023, for the purpose of another pressure, Andrey was transferred to a temporary detention center in another settlement in the Rostov Region, and on March 9, the Neklinovsky District Court of the Rostov Region appointed Andrey Zakhtey 4 days of administrative arrest under part 1.1. article 19. 3 of the administrative code of the Russian Federation for disobedience to a lawful order or 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 or obstruction of the performance of his official duties.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center systematically and constantly deals with issues related to the fate of Ukrainian political prisoners, and is concerned about the passive position of Ukrainian state bodies, which does not meet the interests of Ukrainian citizens and can harm the fate of political prisoners. We hope that appropriate steps will be taken in the near future for the speedy return of Andrey Zakhtey and other political prisoners to the controlled territory of Ukraine.