“France is and will remain a key player in supporting Ukraine within the EU.” People First! The campaign was presented in Paris.
A delegation of representatives from organizations that have joined the global People First! The campaign, which demands the release of all those enslaved and deported as a result of Russian military aggression in Ukraine, made a comprehensive advocacy trip to the French capital.
The delegation included representatives of two Nobel laureates—Olexandra Romantsova, executive director of the Center for Civil Liberties, and Natalia Morozova, a lawyer at the Memorial Human Rights Center. It also included Yug de Surmen, legal director of the European Network for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, and Anne Le Lueur, professor of post-Soviet studies at the University of Paris-Nanterre.
People First! The campaign demands the immediate release of all Kremlin prisoners as a priority for achieving any peace agreements, namely:
- tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians illegally imprisoned by the Russians;
- hundreds of illegally deported Ukrainian children;
- thousands of prisoners of war on both sides;
- over a thousand political prisoners.
To advocate for the campaign’s demands and draw maximum attention to the issue, the delegation held a series of consultations, presentations, and meetings with the media. They discussed the difficulties in establishing the process of releasing people, the need to identify all those who have been enslaved and deported, whom Russia is holding incommunicado, as well as those Ukrainians whom Russia is deporting without documents or means of survival, who are supported by volunteers and colleagues from the European Network for the Legal Protection of Prisoners’ Rights and Ukrainian NGOs such as Prisoners’ Rights Protection in Ukraine.
“France is and will continue to be a key player in the process of supporting Ukraine in the EU. At the same time, its government officials are also ready to play an active role as negotiators. The goal of our campaign is to ensure that the first item on the agenda of any negotiations with Russia is the release of illegally imprisoned Ukrainian civilians and military personnel, especially those in serious condition,” says Oleksandra Romantsova, executive director of the Center for Civil Liberties.
In particular, our colleagues managed to meet with Bertrand BUCHWALTE, advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron, who is directly involved in the political negotiations to end the war, and to hold a meeting with the Defense Research Division of the French Ministry of Defense, which is engaged in the development of analytical materials on defense policy issues; meet with representatives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of the Ukraine Friendship Group in the National Assembly, Natalia Pouzyreff. To gain support for the demand to release the prisoners, the delegation also gave a series of interviews to leading French media outlets, including France24, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Mediapart, and Bastamag.
Photo: Basta!, Emma Bougerol.
