Ukraine’s consul in Russia will visit Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, who is illegally held in Russia, and will convey birthday greetings to him from state leadership and relatives, Director of the Consular Service Department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Serhiy Pohoreltsev has said.
“The consul will convey congratulations from the leadership of the state and inform him about the current situation, what is happening in Ukraine… This is a visit of support,” he told journalists in Kyiv on February 8.
In addition, the Ukrainian consul will pass to Sushchenko congratulations from his relatives.
According to Pohoreltsev, the consul visits the journalist every time he manages to get permission for such a visit.
Earlier on this day – Sushchenko’s birthday – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised to do everything possible to ensure that all Ukrainian political prisoners could return to their homeland.
“Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko marks his second birthday in a Russian pre-trial detention center, where the Kremlin regime holds him on trumped-up charges. However, we will do everything possible to ensure that Roman quickly returns to Ukraine, to his family, as well as other Ukrainians who are held hostage in the territory of the Russian Federation, in occupied Crimea and Donbas,” Poroshenko wrote on his Facebook page.
Russia’s FSB reported the detention of the Ukrainian journalist “during an act of espionage” in Moscow on October 3, 2016. Sushchenko was charged with espionage (Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code). He denies his guilt.
