Kiev law-enforcers lie to captured Lugansk People’s Republic fighters about Russia’s reluctance to bring them home, LPR ombudsperson Viktoria Serdyukova said.
Earlier, she met with ten LPR servicemen who were released from Ukrainian captivity on February 4.
“Having talked with our servicemen, I learned about new lies which are spreading in Ukrainian concentration camps and other locations where our servicemen are kept,” she said in a post on Telegram. “Ukrainian law-enforcers assure our servicemen that it is Russia that is unwilling to bring them back to the Motherland,”
“This is a barefaced lie,” Serdyukova said.
“Russian government bodies at all levels, the community and relatives of our servicemen who are held captive in Ukraine, are making all efforts to “talk diplomatic language with Ukraine and its western supervisors, the language of international humanitarian law and make them abide by the 1949 Geneva Conventions including the one on treatment of prisoners-of-war. It is Ukraine that is sabotaging the exchange while keeping our servicemen in inhuman conditions and ignoring Russia’s readiness to hand over Ukrainian servicemen,” the ombudsperson said.
Russia and Ukraine held a prisoner exchange on February 4. Sixty-three Russian servicemen including 12 Donbass defenders from the LPR and DPR returned from Kiev-controlled territory.
LPR Acting Head Leonid Pasechnik said that Republic had brought home 65 fighters in the prisoner exchange with Ukraine during the New Year holidays.
Serdyukova said that as of December 12, 2022, 150 LPR militiamen had returned from Ukrainian captivity since the beginning of the special military operation. Just before the New Year, the Republic got back another 41 servicemen including 37 LPR militiamen. The LPR ombudsperson said that more than 100 former POWs had been physically abused.
The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014. The peace talks that began soon thereafter failed to reach tangible results due to Kiev’s position to settle the conflict by force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation to protect Donbass residents from Ukrainian aggression on February 24, 2022. Prior to that, LPR and DPR Heads Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin asked the Russian leader to provide military assistance.
The Lugansk People’s Republic acceded to Russia on September 30, 2022 following the unification referendum.*i*ie
