As part of the prisoner exchange on 14 August, three doctors who had endured Russian sham trials and more than seven years of captivity have been brought back to territory controlled by Ukraine. Along with 48 other civilians, medics Ihor Kirianenko, Ihor Nazarenko, and Yurii Shapovalov have been released from captivity.
Source: Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Head of the President’s Office
Details: Doctor and businessman Ihor Kirianenko was detained in the temporarily occupied city of Donetsk in 2018, when he was 61 years old. He was unable to leave for territory controlled by Ukraine because he was caring for his paralysed mother and disabled younger brother.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukrainian Parliamentary Human Rights Commissioner, said that at first, Ihor Kirianenko was held in Makiivka Strict Regime Penal Colony No. 32.
Ihor Kirianenko**Photo: Dmytro Lubinets on Telegram
In 2020, the local occupation administration charged Ihor under a political article for his pro-Ukraine views and sentenced him to 12 years’ imprisonment.
During his unlawful detention, the doctor suffered a heart attack and a stroke, and lost all his teeth. Later, he was transferred to the Donetsk pre-trial detention centre, to a basement facility where tuberculosis patients had been held for years.
Lubinets stressed that after the heart attack, Ihor began fainting, lost weight, developed cyanosis (bluish-purple colour of the skin) of his limbs and severe swelling, and the loss of his teeth led to a pronounced deformation of the lower jaw.
In captivity, Ihor’s chronic illnesses also worsened, including a tumour of the pancreas, diabetes, severe heart pain, and leg pain from an injury sustained during an artillery strike.
Ihor Nazarenko**Photo: former Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova on Facebook
Another person released from captivity is surgeon Ihor Nazarenko from Donetsk, whom the Russians abducted from his workplace in 2017.
As former Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova recounted, he was accused of “terrorism”, tortured, and then given 11 years in a penal colony on fabricated charges.
Nazarenko was held in Makiivka Correctional Colony No. 32 in unsanitary conditions and without heating, yet he still tried to provide medical assistance to his fellow inmates.
Yurii Shapovalov**Photo: former Human Rights Commissioner Liudmyla Denisova on Facebook
Another civilian prisoner of the Kremlin freed on 14 August is neurologist Yurii Shapovalov.
Denisova said that Yurii was detained in Donetsk in 2018. Armed men in masks attacked him and threw him to the ground when he was speaking on the phone with his mother on his way home from work.
After his detention, he was taken to the Izolyatsia torture chamber, where he was tortured with electric shocks and had his ribs broken while being forced to “confess” to cooperation with the Ukrainian security services.
In April 2018, Shapovalov was transferred to the pre-trial detention centre in occupied Donetsk, and in April 2020 the court handed him a false sentence – 13 years in prison for “espionage”.
Background:
On 14 August, Ukraine managed to bring back 33 prisoners of war and 51 civilians from Russian captivity.Among those freed were three civilian women who had been in captivity for more than six years. One of them, Svitlana Holovan, had not seen her two children since 2019.Also freed was a 26-year-old man whom the Russians had imprisoned when he was still a teenager. He had been held in captivity for nine years, awaiting his return to territory controlled by Ukraine.
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