Currently, there are over 100 political prisoners from Ukraine being held in Russia or occupied Crimea, while at least another 150 are being held by Russian proxies in Donbas.
Over a dozen former prisoners of Vladimir Putin's regime who were eventually released from Russian captivity are launching a platform aimed to help free the remaining political prisoners still held by Russia and its proxy forces.
The founders presented the Platform at the Theological Academy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Kyiv on March 4, 2021, Euromaidan Press reports.
The founders stress the platform will be engaged in fighting for the release of "all Ukrainian citizens held behind bars – political prisoners, hostages, and prisoners of war."
"The platform is a non-partisan association set up to protect the rights of and release all those imprisoned for political reasons in the occupied territories and in [Russia]. Our goal is to restore justice for everyone, have political prisoners released, and counter Russian aggression," said Pavlo Hryb, one of the platform's co-founders who is also an ex-Kremlin prisoner.
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The platform was founded by:
Deputy Speaker of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, Akhtem Chiygoz, says Russia will continue to illegally detain citizens of Ukraine as long as it continues its aggression and occupation of Ukrainian territories.
Over the last year the list of Kremlin hostages grew by 24. At the end of 2020, a total of 69 Crimean Muslims, most of whom are representatives of the indigenous minority population of Crimean Tatars, were imprisoned for being members of a Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, which is banned in mainland Russia. On February 17, six more Crimean Tatars were detained.
Filmmaker Oleg Sentsov shared that the Platform will hold information campaigns raising awareness about Ukrainian prisoners – both in Ukraine and beyond – to create pressure on the Russian leadership.
"At the international level, meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin should begin with questions about the release of Ukrainian political prisoners," he said.
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Currently, there are over 100 political prisoners from Ukraine being held in Russia or occupied Crimea. At least 150 Ukrainian hostages are being held by the Russian puppet "Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics" in eastern Ukraine.