Foreign Ministry urges Russia to immediately return to Ukraine groundlessly detained Pavlo Hryb

This is said in the statement made by the Foreign Ministry, released on Friday, September 8.

"The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine expresses its strong protest to the Russian side in connection with the groundless arrest of the 19-year-old citizen of Ukraine, Pavlo Hryb, and his detention in the pre-trial detention center of Krasnodar in the Russian Federation. We demand that the Russian side immediately ensures the access of Ukrainian consuls to detained citizen of Ukraine Pavlo Hryb and to provide exhaustive information on place, reasons and circumstances of his detention, conditions of his detention and ensure his immediate return to Ukraine," the document reads.

The Foreign Ministry strongly condemned persecution by Russian authorities of Ukrainian citizens in Russia and abroad, groundless detention of Ukrainians, violation of their right to a fair trial and conviction on trumped-up politically motivated cases.

As Ukrinform reported, on August 27, a Ukrainian citizen and a former border guard officer, Ihor Hryb, appealed to the Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk with a statement that his son, Pavlo, born in 1998, disappeared in Belarus.

On August 24, the young man left Chernihiv for Gomel and disappeared there. Ihor Hryb initially searched for his son in Belarus independently. Police representatives in Gomel reported that his son had been placed on the wanted list by the FSB of the Krasnodar Territory of Russia under an article "terrorist act."

Ihor Hryb previously served in the Ukrainian border troops and is now involved in the creation of a chaplaincy service in law enforcement agencies. He suspects that Russia's special services kidnapped his son in Belarus.

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