Mr. Chair.
More than four years. Three colleagues. Still illegally detained by Russia. Maxim Petrov, Dmytro Shabanov and Vadym Golda.
They served an OSCE mission mandated by every participating State. Russia included. They should never have spent a single day behind bars.
Reports now indicate Golda’s transfer to a medical-correctional facility in Russia. If confirmed, he would be the third SMM colleague unlawfully transferred from occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia. Held incommunicado and without notifying their families. In blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
These are not isolated abuses. They reflect Russia’s broader pattern of arbitrary detention in occupied Ukraine. And within their own borders. When law is used not to protect people but to break them, the issue is no longer procedure. It is abuse.
Russia must release all three colleagues. Immediately. Unconditionally. We will not stop demanding their freedom.