At least 358 citizens of Ukraine were stuck in Moscow temporary detention facilities (SIZO) and in a special detention center in Sakharovo after the start of the war. Kommersant reports this with reference to members of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC) and the public monitoring commission (POC) of Moscow. They cannot be sent to Ukraine due to the break in diplomatic relations between the countries.

Partially, about 60 people, these are Ukrainians who were detained at the request of the Ukrainian side for committing crimes in Ukraine. “However, there are those who say that they did not know about their search,” Eva Merkacheva, a member of the HRC and the PMC of Moscow, told the newspaper.

More than 180 people are accused of committing crimes in Russia.

“According to an agreement between the countries, after the Russian trial and sentence, they could serve their sentences in their homeland. But now this mechanism has stopped. What to do next is unclear. But compared to the refugees, of whom we have hundreds of thousands, there are not so many imprisoned Ukrainians. So far, it is easier to feed them and leave them on the territory of the Russian Federation until the end of the special operation and the renewal of agreements, ”adds Merkacheva.

Another 113 Ukrainians are awaiting deportation in the special detention center in Sakharovo, said Georgy Ivanov, a member of the Moscow POC. Before the start of the war, a maximum of 30-40 citizens of Ukraine were kept in Sakharovo at the same time, since the deportation took place "quite quickly." Now it is more difficult to extradite them to Ukraine. In addition, many of them do not have documents: “Before the special operation, a Ukrainian without documents could have expected that the employees of the Central Military Research Center would turn to the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow, help them get a passport and buy air tickets. Then they delivered the person to the airport and supervised the process of deportation. But there is no more Ukrainian embassy in Moscow,” says Ivanov.

If the war drags on and diplomatic relations between the countries are not resumed, the Ukrainians could spend two years in Sakharovo. After that, they are required to be released, but human rights activists do not exclude that they may be detained at the exit and “arrange the same for another two years.” Members of the PMC are asking the Moscow Ombudsman Tatyana Potyaeva to intervene in the situation "and possibly initiate work at the level of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation."