Last week our friends from the German NGO DRA e.V. welcomed in their office Sasha Romantsova, civil society leader from Ukraine, the Executive Director of “Center for Civil Liberties” and Wilfried Jilge, Expert on Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Center for International Peace Operations (Germany).

Experts and guests discussed the situation with the prisoners of war and the issue of the prisoners‘ exchange in the ongoing Russia‘s war against Ukraine. They highlighted the need for the international information campaign about the awful conditions of the Ukrainian prisoners in Russia and the need to urgently improve them. The experts stressed the need for the international pressure on Russia to respect the Geneva Convention and have more prisoners‘ exchanges.

Since 2014, the Center for Civil Liberties has been dealing with the cases of Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, but after the start of the full-scale invasion, they began to cover the cases of prisoners and hostages on the occupied territory of Ukraine.