Press Release, 22.03.2022

Photo: Michelle Bachelet / Photo from http://euro-ombudsman.org

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov turned to international organisations with a proposal to help organise the exchange of wounded and captured soldiers in Ukraine and the bodies of the dead. The head of the party sent corresponding letters to Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, and Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.

Rybakov refers to Article 110 of the Geneva Convention, according to which prisoners of war are subject to direct repatriation.

“Today, the organisation of the exchange of prisoners, the wounded, the bodies of the dead, and the cessation of bloodshed is the most important issue. And we offer our help, our experience and our resources for this,” Rybakov noted.

There are people in Yabloko who took part in the organization of the exchange of prisoners of war during the first war in Chechnya in 1994, including Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky, who later recalled this on air of Channel One:

“I collected the remains of our soldiers in the streets of Grozny, where dogs ate them. But today history repeats. Again, there are graves without names. Again there are lies and betrayal. Again there are deceived parents. Only now all this is in Ukraine. But the shame is the same.”

It should be noted the leaders Yabloko have already turned with a similar proposal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova, International Red Cross President Peter Maurer, head of the Russian Red Cross Pavel Savchuk, WHO representative in Russia Melita Vujnovic, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.