Legal proceedings initiated against Russian pensioner who gave assistance to Ukrainian refugees
In Russia a case against a 74-year-old librarian, Larisa Ladatkina, was initiated for providing assistance to refugees from the Donbas region. According to Rosbalt, she faces up to three years in prison. The elderly woman is accused of providing assistance to refugees from Luhansk, a city in eastern Ukraine.
Reportedly, in the fall of 2015, the woman had registered and invited a family of Ukrainian immigrants to live in her apartment in Khimki (Moscow region). The registration period for the Ukrainian immigrants to remain in the Russian Federation had expired at that time.
"In April 2016, the librarian was summoned appear before an investigator with the Department of the Interior Ministry in the city of Khimki for questioning 'as a suspect.' There Ladatkina found out that a criminal case under Article 322.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fictitious registration of a foreign citizen or a stateless person at a place of residence in a residential area in the Russian Federation) was initiated against her. Now the old woman is faced with three years in prison," the message stated.
According to investigators, Ladatkina "carried out a fictitious registration for four Ukrainian citizens at the residence."
"For the first time in my long practice I was confronted with this kind of police action. Ladatkina showed compassion to the refugees from Luhansk city and she is now being prosecuted," Ladatkina’s lawyer, Roland Eminov, said.
Previously, the Federal Migration Service of Russia said that in the previous two years about 13.5 billion rubles were spent on refugees from Ukraine.