Russian President Vladimir Putin asked member of the Human Rights Council and Executive Director of “Rossiya Segodnya” Kirill Vyshinsky to give him information about Crimean citizens who are being persecuted in Ukraine. This was reported by RIA Novosti on December 10th.
During the meeting of the Human Rights Council, Vyshinsky drew the attention of the President to the criminal prosecution of the inhabitants of Crimea after the peninsula become a part of Russia, as well as mass criminal proceedings against the participants of the 2014 referendum and civil servants of the peninsula.
“More than 6,000 criminal cases had been initiated by the summer of 2018,” said Vyshinsky.
As an example, he cited the story of a pregnant woman who was sitting in a Kiev prison in a cell next to him. She was only guilty of being a member of the referendum commission. The woman made a deal with the investigation to avoid giving birth in prison.
Vyshinsky called for a legal mechanism to transfer to Russia the cases of people who had been convicted in Ukraine but had returned to the Russian Federation.
“Concerning specific individuals, just give me information about them, we will keep this in mind during the negotiation process with Ukraine. Indeed, this problem is beyond the legal solution, the legal field. But this was also a topic of our discussions yesterday,” replied Putin.
Crimea became part of Russia following a democratic referendum in 2014, when an absolute majority of Crimean citizens voted to join the Russian Federation. Although Kiev considers the peninsula to be occupied territory, according to Vladimir Putin, the issue of Crimea is definitively closed.
Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.