18/04/2022 11:41

The Russian Federation continues to torture Ukrainian political prisoners

Volodymyr Yakymenko, who was unjustifiably detained on June 13, 2017 in Crimea and sentenced to 15 years in prison on a fabricated case for his pro-Ukrainian position, is actually starving in the №4 penal colony in Pugachev, Saratov Oblast (Russia), where he is currently being held.

In a russian penitentiary, Volodymyr is deprived of breakfast, lunch or dinner because he is Ukrainian.  As a result of malnutrition, he began to have stomach pains, because he has chronic gastritis and duodenal ulcer.

Due to severe pain, Volodymyr was forced to seek medical help, but he was denied treatment.  The doctor, learning that Volodymyr was Ukrainian, said that "Ukrainians need to be killed."

Such actions of representatives of penitentiary institutions of the Russian Federation are torture and a way of depriving the citizens of Ukraine of the right to life, which is a violation of Articles 6, 7, 9, 14, 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Failure to provide medical care in the presence of chronic diseases is a gross violation of paragraph 22 of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, approved by the UN Economic and Social Council, and Article 17 of Federal Law № 103-FZ "On Detention of Suspects and Accused of Crimes"  , as well as contrary to the guaranteed norms of Article 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

I appeal to the UN Commission for Investigation Human Rights Violations during Russia's military invasion of Ukraine to take into account this fact of Russia's violation of the rights of Ukrainian citizens.