"The serviceman has never been visited by Russian consuls. Never! Our consuls are struggling to be granted visits to our prisoners in the Russian Federation; our consuls were physically attacked in Chechnya when they broke through to the court hearing of Karpiuk and Klykh; they are not being allowed to see Sentsov and Kolchenko, who have been imposed Russian citizenship; our Consul searched for Roman Sushchenko in Lefortovo [Moscow's district court] and tried to meet with Yevhen Panov, when the latter was there, in-between Simferopol torture," she wrote on Facebook.
Read alsoCaptured Russian soldier Ageyev meets mother, says ignored by Russian officialsAccording to Gerashchenko, this shows two different worlds: Ukraine does not abandon its citizens, does not forget them, recognizes them, fights for them, and honors them, compared with the Russian Federation, which goes with the «we’re not there” rhetoric.
Read alsoSBU names number of Ukrainian hostages in Russia, occupied Donbas"Several times, I personally met Russian citizens in prisons, who had not been visited by a consul for months, despite the information on them being availbale and despite requests for a visit having been filed. That’s because visiting them would mean recognizing them," she said.
Gerashchenko has added that Russia does not need its citizens, even less so the residents of Crimea and Donbas. It only needs territory, she says.
As UNIAN reported earlier, a Russian contracted serviceman, Viktor Ageyev, was captured by Ukrainian forces in Luhansk region after a brief shootout with a recon sabotage group he was part of. His mother, friends, and former fellow soldiers confirmed to reporters that after he completed his draft service, he signed a contract with the Russian army in March 2017.
Ageyev's mother, who was allowed to see her son Saturday, insists that he was on active duty with the armed forces of the Russian Federation, even being promoted to a rank of corporal in May 2017.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the captured Russian citizen had been dismissed from military service in 2016.
