The Kyiv Court of Appeals on Sept. 5 released Volodymyr Tsemakh, a fighter for Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine who is considered a likely witness or suspect in the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.
Less than an hour after Tsemakh walked free, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine and Russia were “approaching the final stage” of negotiations relating to a significant prisoner swap.
Tsemakh could have been the last obstacle preventing a prisoner exchange that has been in the cards throughout the last few months.
The release of Ukrainian prisoners has been one of the main promises of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who discussed it with Putin on the phone and wears yellow bands with the names of Russia’s prisoners on both wrists. Zelensky said he would wear them until the prisoners return home.
As of now, only seven Ukrainian political prisoners have been released from Russian jails following negotiations since the beginning of Russia’s war in 2014. There are at least 120 Ukrainian political prisoners kept in jails of Russia and Russian-annexed Crimea. There are also at least 130 military servicepeople and civilians imprisoned in Russian-controlled parts of the Donbas.
While no official exchange lists are available, human rights activists and lawyers say they will include about 30 people from each side. Most likely, there will be 24 Ukrainian sailors who were captured by Russian forces in November in the Black Sea near Crimea and also about 10 other Ukrainian political prisoners, including the Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, sentenced in Russia to 20 years behind bars.
But many in Ukraine are questioning the cost of the exchange. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) arrested Tsemakh following a daring operation in late June. He was seized in the Russian-controlled city of Snizhne in Donetsk Oblast.
According to Bellingcat, the international open-source investigative team, Tsemakh was the commander of a separatist air defense unit based in Snizhne and was a key witness or even a suspect in the downing of the Malaysian Airlines airplane over eastern Ukraine, which killed 298 people in July 2014.
Several observers claimed it could undermine Ukraine’s relations with its international supporters, especially the Netherlands, whose prosecutors had asked the Ukrainian authorities not to give Tsemakh to Russia.
For the families of the captives, however, Tsemakh’s release provides hope that they could soon see their loved ones again.
Many Ukrainian prisoners are in grave mental or physical condition. Some have been sentenced to more than 20 years of incarceration. The youngest Ukrainian political prisoner is just 19 years old.
