Ombudsperson on the effectiveness of the OSCE: We asked for help in returning our employees from Russian captivity

Ombudsperson on the effectiveness of the OSCE: We asked for help in returning our employees from Russian captivity

Kyiv  •  UNN

December 7 2023, 01:58 PM • 36814 views

The OSCE Secretary General appealed to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights to help release three Ukrainian OSCE staff members held by Russia as Russia remains an OSCE member.

The OSCE Secretary General is appealing to the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, to help return three Ukrainian citizens with official statuses of OSCE employees from captivity in Russia. He said this on Thursday on the sidelines of the international conference "Freedom or Fear," a UNN correspondent reports.

Lubinets commented on cooperation with the OSCE in order to use their mechanisms to visit Russian prisons.

Three official OSCE staff members who were in the temporarily occupied territory were captured by the Russian military, and the OSCE Secretary General is asking me to help return these three Ukrainian citizens with official statuses of OSCE staff, 

Lubinets said.

Details

The Ombudsman noted that at the same time, the Russian Federation continues to be a member of the OSCE.

"Lavrov came to the meeting. Probably, someone hoped after this meeting to see that the three civilian hostages would be released by the Russian Federation. No, it did not," Lubinets said.

Addendum

Ukrainian Foreign Minister statedthat in order to really save the OSCE from complete collapse and disintegration, it is necessary to re-found it without Russia, or find a way to exclude Russia from the organization.