On this basis the Russian authorities refuse to transfer Crimean citizens with Ukrainian citizenship to the Ukrainian authorities.
The Russian Federation denied the Ukrainian authorities the extradition of Ukrainian citizen Andrei Lugin.
Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova in her official replying to the request of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Valeriia Lutkovskaya asserts that the transfer of the Crimean citizen Lugin A.A. to serve his sentence in Ukraine is impossible because he is Russian citizen. According to the information his wife, Irina Lugina, her husband didn’t receive a Russian passport and has only Ukrainian citizenship.
Recall that Andrei Lugin was convicted under Article 93 and 257 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine by a Ukrainian court before the occupation of the peninsula. After the occupation of Crimea, he was taken to a Russian colony in Mordovia, which is a war crime under Part 1 of Article 49 IV Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949.
Earlier Andrei Lugin has repeatedly appealed to various instances of the Russian Federation and Ukraine with a request to transfer him for serving his sentence on the mainland of Ukraine. In protest against transfer to the Russian Federation, he tried to commit suicide and wounded his throat.
Ukrainian political prisoners Oleh Sentsov and Alexander Kolchenko were also illegally moved from Crimea by the Russian authorities, and now they are held in the colonies in the north of the Russian Federation. On October 20, 2016, Ukraine be refused in extradition of Crimean citizens. Russian officials referred to the fact that they consider them their citizens. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs argues that citizens of Ukraine Sentsov and Kolchenko did not apply for Russian citizenship, and the corresponding statements by Moscow contradict the norms of international law.
Russian authorities since the occupation of the peninsula have used the practice of forcing Ukrainian prisoners to accept Russian citizenship on the basis of the so-called “Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea on the admission of the Russian Federation to the Russian Federation of the Republic of Crimea and the formation of new subjects in the Russian Federation” of March 18, 2014″.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine stressed at the illegality of forcing to receive the Russian citizenship in Crimean prisons.
“From a legal point of view, this “agreement” is contrary to the imperative norms of international law, namely, it violates the obligations of states to refrain from any actions that undermine the territorial integrity of sovereign states stated in the Declaration on the Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the UN Charter adopted by the UN General Assembly resolution No. 2625 in 1970, ” – the Krym.Realii quotes the Foreign Ministry’s response to its information request.
In accordance with Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Agreements since 1969, such agreements are “void”, and therefore can’t have any legal consequences. Compulsory conferment of nationality to citizens of Ukraine, who live on the territory of Crimea, the citizenship of Russia isn’t recognised by Ukraine and isn’t basis for losing Ukrainian citizenship to the citizenship of Russia.
