On December 18, at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Italian Senate, the Giustiniani Palace, an international event “System of Terror. Russian Occupation of Ukraine” took place and the documentary film “Imprisoned: System of Terror” by director Yevheniia Chyrikova was presented. The event was initiated by Senator Ivan Scalfarotto with the participation of Associazione Culturale Ucraina Libera. It was dedicated to the systematic political repressions that Russia is carrying out against the civilian population in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
This is stated on the website of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center.
Among the speakers was Ukrainian journalist and former civilian prisoner from Kherson, Oleksandr Tarasov.
Also during the presentation spoke the film’s author Yevheniia Chyrikova, activist and co-founder of the Community of Free Russians in Italy Maria Mikaelyan, representative of the Free Ukrainian Cultural Association Svitlana Bubenchikova, Ukrainian activist Larysa Shevandina, as well as the sister of the Crimean political prisoner Serhiy Lykhomanov — Tetiana Zelena.
In her speech Tetiana Zelena emphasized that after the start of the Russian occupation, arrests, kidnappings and the fabrication of criminal cases became an everyday reality for residents of the occupied territories. According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, at least 486 people have been convicted in occupied Crimea for political reasons, and only 12 of them were returned to Ukraine as part of exchanges.
She also told the story of her brother Serhiy Lykhomanov — a former Ukrainian serviceman who two years ago, a few days before the New Year, was abducted from his home in Crimea. According to her, the man was subjected to torture, was illegally sentenced to 15 years in prison and is currently held in a Russian prison in Taganrog without access to lawyers or proper medical care.
During the event the names of other Ukrainians illegally imprisoned by Russia were also mentioned, including Serhiy Tsyhipa, Kostyantyn Maksymov, Viktor Bondarenko and Kostyantyn Zinovkin.
As a result of the meeting, participants called on the Italian Senate to recognize the FSB, the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) and the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya) as terrorist organizations as structures that directly organize and carry out systematic terror in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine; to initiate an official appeal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation demanding the immediate release of all Ukrainian civilian hostages illegally taken by the Russian Federation since 2014.