Mother of Russian military detainee in Ukraine asks Poroshenko to pardon her son
According to Svetlana Ageyeva, the mother of the Russian soldier detained in the Donbass, "it will be a great life lesson for [her son]" if Poroshenko pardons him. Ageyev's mother also said in her video message to Poroshenko that she did not know how her son was in the Donbas. According to Ageyeva, only contract service was discussed with the family.
"I myself am still in the dark; I still cannot understand how it happened….who influenced my child so much, that he found himself in those places [in the Donbas]?" she said. According to Ageyeva, she is ready to personally come to Ukraine to take part in negotiations regarding the fate of her son.
It was reported in late June by the Russian service of the BBC that military serviceman Victor Ageyev was captured in the Luhansk region. According to the publication, in March 2017 Ageyev signed a contract and went to serve in a special purpose brigade of the General Staff of Russia's GRU, located in the Rostov region.
Ukrainian journalists interviewed Ageyev, during which he stated that he was a serviceman of military unit 65246, located in Novocherkassk. According to Ageyev, he spent only four days in his military unit, after which he was sent to the Luhansk region of Ukraine.
According to the TV channel 112 Ukraine, Ageyev is currently in jail in Starobilsk (Luhansk region). There are open proceedings against Ageyev under an article on the establishing a terrorist group or organization (Part 1, Article 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The Ministry of Defense of Russia has stated that Ageyev is not an active member of the military. According to Russian Ministry of Defense, Ageyev retired in May 2016 and did not sign a contract.
In turn, Ukrainian Representative of Ukraine for the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilaterial Contact Group Iryna Herashchenko, who is also the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada wrote on Facebook that the mother of the Russian soldier Victor Ageyev, who was detained in the Donbas, should appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin to unblock the process of releasing the Ukrainian hostage.
"The mother of war criminal Ageyev asks President Poroshenko to pardon a murderer of Ukrainians. And we, Ukrainians, demand Putin to pardon Oleg Sentsov! Who has a birthday tomorrow. Who has at home, in the occupied Crimea, two children and an elderly mother. We demand a pardon for Olexandr Kolchenko, who the Red Cross has never been allowed to visit over the years; Nikolai Karpyuk, who is awaited by a small son and a young wife; Stas Klykh, whose parents are seriously ill; Valentin Vygovsky, who was imprisoned for nothing; and Roman Sushchenko, who has two children, a wife and elderly parents," wrote Herashchenko.
The First Deputy Chairman of the Verkohvna Rada reminded that in May 2016, relatives of Russian journalists who died in the Donbas appealed to Putin with a request to pardon Nadezhda Savchenko., The process of exchanging Savchenko for the captured Russian special forces Erofeev and Aleksandrov was launched as a result.
"A request to Novaya Gazeta, which printed this message from Ageyev's mother: please advise her to ask Putin to pardon the Ukrainians! This will unblock the process of releasing the hostages. Maybe then the Russian Federation will recognize that Ageyev and others like them who are sitting in Ukrainian prisons are their lost military personnel," Herashchenko stressed.