28/01/2022 18:16

Commissioner: two Ukrainian fishermen Ruslan Romanyuta and Ivan Gerasimenko detained in the temporarily occupied Crimea

The Russian Federation continues to illegally detain Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean peninsula, without providing official information to the Ukrainian authorities.

Two fishermen Ruslan Romanyuta and Ivan Gerasimenko left the Black Sea on January 25, 2022 on a fishing vessel "Volga" from the city of Henichesk, Kherson region and did not return home. This was announced by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Lyudmyla Denisova.

According to preliminary information, the ship's engine failed and it was driven to the town of Shcholkine in the temporarily occupied Crimea. As it became known, the fishermen were detained by Russian border guards in the Black Sea, about which the Ukrainian side was not informed.

According to this fact, the State Unitary Enterprise of the National Police in the Kherson region initiated criminal proceedings under Part 1 of Article 146-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (enforced disappearance).

According to the Ombudsman, the detention of Ukrainian fishermen by the occupying country contradicts all international law.

Lyudmila Denisova appealed to the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Tatiana Moskalkova to take measures to release illegally detained citizens of Ukraine. And calls on the representatives of international human rights organizations to control the situation regarding the regular facts of detention of Ukrainian citizens by the aggressor country and to prevent violations of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

"We are doing everything possible to protect the rights of Ukrainian fishermen and believe in their return home as soon as possible," said the Ukrainian Parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights.