The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and other involved bodies of Ukraine continue to take steps towards bringing eleven Ukrainian POWs back home after Hungary had received them from Russia without notifying the Ukrainian government or any international human rights organisations, the spokesman for the ministry Oleh Nikolenko said.
“All attempts by Ukrainian diplomats in recent days to establish direct contact with Ukrainian citizens were unsuccessful. <…> In fact, they are kept in isolation, do not have access to open sources of information, their communication with relatives takes place in the presence of third parties, they are denied of the right to establish contact with the Embassy of Ukraine,” he stated.
Furthermore, Ukraine’s attempt to establish a dialogue with the Hungarian authorities using official diplomatic channels are being ignored, Nikolenko added.
“Such actions of Budapest call into question the declared humanitarian motives for the transfer of Ukrainians to Hungary. In addition, they can be qualified as a violation of the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” he continued.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has once again called upon Hungary to immediately allow the Ukrainian consul to visit the Ukrainian POWs, so that he could assess their physical and psychological state, inform them about their rights, and provide immediate consular support.