First Vice-Speaker unfolds Donbas's reality to UK politicians
10 May 2018, 16:30
“The North Stream 2 project is a political project of the Russian Federation and its implementation will negatively affect the Ukrainian economy and allow Russia to blackmail the countries of Central and Eastern Europe,” – Iryna Herashchenko
During her visit to London, the First Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Iryna Herashchenko had on May 9 a range of meetings with Mr John Whittingdale, MP, the chief of the Friendship group with Ukraine; Mr Tom Tugendhat, MP, the Head of the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee; Mr Philip Barton, the Director General, Consular and Security at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and Mr Richard Johnson, deputy Director of the Foreign Office’s Human Rights & Democracy Department.
The Ukrainian politician informed the British colleagues about the work of the Trilateral Contact Group’s working subgroups, the tense security, environmental and humanitarian situation in the Donbas and numerous violations of the human rights in the occupied Crimea. She also drew their attention to the fact the so called “Easter truce” had endured for ten minutes only.
During the meetings, a special attention was there given to the issue of deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission in the Donbas. The politician also expressed her hope for further bilateral cooperation in humanitarian demining.
When informing the British side of the TCG’s activity, Iryna Herashchenko remarked upon an acute scarcity of progress in liberating the hostages and launching a search procedure for the missing men under guidance of the Red Cross.
The First Vice-Speaker drew attention of the conferees that international humanitarian missions were debarred from visiting the illegally detained Ukrainians either in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or in the Russian Federation. Apart from that, I. Herashchenko notified that under such conditions the Kremlin's hostages and political prisoners continue to be tortured.
The politician also expressed her persuasion that in the near future Russia would try hard to destabilize the situation in Europe and in Ukraine, in particular.
She alerted the British colleagues to the fact that the North Stream 2 project would negatively affect the Ukrainian economy, allowing Russia to blackmail the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and increasing the regional security risks. “We call on our colleagues in Britain to support Ukraine’s opposition to this political project of the Kremlin,” stressed I.Herashchenko.
In the task meetings, the First Vice-Speaker was accompanied by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United Kingdom Nataliia Halibarenko, religious historian Ihor Kozlovskyi, who had been released on December 27, 2017, and Victoriia Pantiushenko, a wife of a serviceman Bohdan Pantiushenko, who was being detained in the occupied Donbas. Kozlovskyi's torture stories about the use of psychological pressure and forced labour impressed the British parliamentarians deeply.
Pantiushenko and Kozlovskyi urged the British parliamentarians to take a more active position on the release of the Ukrainian hostages and political prisoners held both in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and in the Russian Federation.