They are finally home — at least 35 of them, Ukrainians imprisoned by Russia amid an endless war in its sixth year. But at least another 200 Ukrainians remain in Russian prisons.
The freed ones landed Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport early afternoon on Sept. 7 after being exchanged for 35 prisoners requested by Russia. A throng of loved ones waited to greet the arrivals at on the runway, along with President Volodymyr Zelensky and top officials.
A surge of cheers and applause swelled as the prisoners exited the plane and shook hands and embraced with Zelensky before loved ones leapt into their arms. Many cried tears of joy. Some erupted into songs and prayers.
It is the first mass release of Ukrainians from Russian prisons since Russia started its war against Ukraine in 2014, seizing Crimea and invading the eastern Donbas in a conflict that has killed 13,000 Ukrainians. During more than five years of fighting, Russia has released only seven Ukrainian political prisoners.
The freed prisoners include filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, Ukraine’s most prominent political prisoner in Russia. The 24 Ukrainian sailors captured last year are also among the released.
“Next, we will come closer to the liberation of all our (prisoners) and continue mutual troop withdrawal according to the Minsk Protocol,” said Zelensky, who envisions an eventual ceasefire across the entire zone of conflict. Nevertheless, he believes that Ukraine will recover “not only our people but also our territories.”
The exchange is a victory for Zelensky who made the prisoners’ release one of his key promises and had held long negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone. Zelensky had worn yellow bands with the names of Russia’s prisoners on both wrists and said he would not take them off until they returned home.
But there are many more still imprisoned.
There are at least 120 Ukrainian political prisoners sitting in jails in Russia and Russian-annexed Crimea. There are also at least 130 military servicepeople and civilians imprisoned in Russia-controlled parts of the Donbas.
Zelensky said that both he and Putin fulfilled their promises and vowed to keep working towards freeing all other prisoners and ending the war in Donbas.
Read also – What we know about 35 political prisoners released from Russia.
One of the 35 freed Ukrainian prisoners reunites with his relatives upon arriving at Boryspil on Sep. 7, 2019. (Volodymyr Petrov)
The exchange could be the start of a rapprochement between Russia and Ukraine — ending the war had been one of Zelensky’s main promises. However, Ukraine and Russia still do not see eye to eye on many issues, especially the return of Crimea to Ukraine’s control. Meanwhile, Russian-backed militants continue to attack Ukrainians in the Kremlin-occupied regions, and, chiefly, Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t regard Ukraine as an independent nation.
There have been a number of signs in the past few weeks that a prisoner exchange was imminent.
In the last days of August, some Ukrainian political prisoners had been transferred to Moscow from prisons in other Russian cities, where they have been serving terms after being convicted on bogus charges.
Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian politician, now a businessman living in Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post that high- level negotiations were ongoing between many intermediaries among the two sides.
On Sept. 6, Zelensky granted clemency to 12 Russian prisoners, Russian media reported, quoting the Russians’ lawyer Valentin Rybin.
Early on Sept. 7, two buses left Lefortovo, a prison in Moscow, where Ukrainian political prisoners had been transferred from various Russian prisons. Nikolai Polozov, the lawyer representing the detained sailors posted “the process has begun” on his social media account.” The convoy drove to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport.
A Russian plane landed in Boryspil airport shortly after, to pick up the 35 detainees that would be leaving Ukraine. The plane took off at around noon. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian plane landed at Vnukovo.
Soon after, Kirill Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential administration posted a photo looking out of the front of a plane at Vnukovo airport, captioned with just one word: “Zustrichayte” — “Meet us.”
“It was very difficult and I was really afraid that our negotiations would be disrupted,” Zelensky told media at Boryspil, shortly after the former detainees exited the plane.
Friends and loved ones wait for the freed Ukrainian prisoners to step out of the plane in Boryspil on Sep. 7, 2019. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Sentsov has been Ukraine’s most prominent political prisoner in Russia. The 41-year-old filmmaker was arrested in Russian-annexed Crimea in May 2014 and was sentenced at a sham trial for 20 years in prison on charges of plotting a terrorist attack, which he denies. Sentsov nearly died in 2018 after 145 days on hunger strike, during which he demanded the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners.
“I want to say thank you to those people who have been helping us and all our families all these years, who have been fighting for us and sought our release and ultimately achieved it,” Sentsov told reporters shortly after being reunited with his daughter. “I hope that the rest of the prisoners will be released soon. But even with the release of the last prisoner, our battle is not over. We are still far from victory.”
21-year-old Pavlo Hryb is among other political prisoners on the release list. He was abducted in August 2017 during a trip to Belarus and illegally transferred to Russia, where he was sentenced to six years for alleged terrorist activity. Hryb has serious health problems and his family worried that he could have died in Russian prison without medical aid.
Some of the former prisoners went to a hospital after departing Boryspil.
The 24 Ukrainian navy sailors are free and back in Ukraine as well. They had been captured by the Russian coast guard and officers of the FSB security service in the neutral waters of the Black Sea near Crimea and the Kerch Strait in November.
Ukraine saw them as prisoners of war while Russia, which denies involvement in its war against Ukraine, tried them as criminals in civilian courts for allegedly trespassing on Russian territory.
Many in Ukraine questioned the cost of the exchange, which included the release of Volodymyr Tsemakh, a key suspect in the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17. The security Service of Ukraine had arrested Tsemakh in a daring operation in Donetsk Oblast in late June.
Zelensky told media at Boryspil that Tsemakh was questioned before his release, as requested by some European leaders. Zelensky declined to name any names. However, Netherlands officials had criticized Ukraine’s decision to release Tsemakh. The Netherlands reportedly issued a formal request to Russia for Tsemakh shortly after the prisoner exchange.
According to Bellingcat, the international open-source investigative team, Tsemakh commanded a separatist air defense unit based in Snizhne in Donetsk Oblast and was a key witness or suspect in the downing of the flight, which killed 298 people in July 2014.
Still, Bellingcat told Ukraine News Network that there is plenty of evidence to implicate Russia even without Tsemakh. Bellingcat investigator Kristina Grozeva said that international investigators gathered so much objective evidence that proves Russia’s involvement, that it will be enough for a court to go on.
Kirill Vyshynsky, former chief editor of Ria Novosti Ukraine, was also exchanged by Ukraine. Vyshynsky had been suspected of treason, separatism and illegal weapon storage. He had been in pre-trial detention since May 15, 2018, until his release by the Kyiv Court of Appeals on Aug. 28.
