150 Ukrainian convicts transferred to Russian penal colonies from Crimea

150 Ukrainian citizens have been transferred from the annexed Crimea to serve sentence in the Russian penal colonies.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said this in the response to the information inquiry from the Crimea. Realities online media outlet.

“According to Ukrainian foreign diplomatic missions in the Russian Federation, there have been about 150 Ukrainian citizens, who were convicted in Crimea and transferred to serve the sentence on the territory of Russia, since the occupation of Crimea,” the response reads.

Earlier, Euromaidan-SOS organization reported that prisoners, who had been convicted in Ukraine and had been serving sentences in prisons on the territory of the peninsula at the time of Crimean annexation, were transported to the detention places in Russia. According to them, there have been already 2,200 such people.

As a reminder, June 21, Ukrainian and Russian ombudswomen Valeriya Lutkovska and Tetiana Moskalkova informed about concluding an agreement on the convicts’ transfer to Ukraine, who had been in prison at the time of Crimean annexation.

According to Lutkovska, it was agreed to transfer 18 people, but “this is not a full list.”

In addition, according to the Russian Penitentiary Service, 240 women have been imprisoned in Crimea after occupation of the peninsula by the Russian Federation.

“All these women have been transferred from Crimea to serve their sentences on the territory of Russian Federation, which is a gross violation of international humanitarian law. According to this law, it is prohibited for the occupant to transfer civilian population from or to the occupied territories. For example, according to Rome Statute, forcible transfer of population is one of the war crimes,” Chairwoman of the Human Rights Information Centre Tetiana Pechonchyk noted.