”I have no authority.” Ex-ombudsman Denisova answered why she did not deal with humanitarian corridors and didnʼt visit prisoners in Russia

The dismissed Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, said she did not engage in humanitarian corridors and the exchange of prisoners because she did not have the authority to do so. She turned to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk for help, but the latter refused.

Denisova stated this in an interview with Babel.

“I received information from Russia about the opportunity to cooperate in the negotiators. On March 24, I called Ms. Vereshchuk and said that it would be very appropriate to inform the head of the Presidential Office [Andriy Yermak] that the contact he knows about provides this possibility. I said that through my Russian counterpart, Ms.Tetyana Moskalkova, I can facilitate cooperation in such exchange talks or under other conditions. Vereshchuk told me that they would manage this on their own. That is, I was denied," she explained.

Denisova stressed that the ombudsmanʼs office itself cannot organize humanitarian corridors, because they are created only in cooperation with the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies.

"As for humanitarian aid, people also turned to us. We immediately passed it on to the humanitarian headquarters on the ground, and they helped. In other words, the Commissioner is a parliamentary control over the observance of [human rights] and the implementation of laws by legal entities and individuals. Control, not substitution. I do not influence any bodies that Ms. Vereshchuk has been involved in, and the ones that agree on humanitarian corridors," Denisova said.

As for criticism that she did not visit captured and deported Ukrainians in Russia and Belarus, Denisova said she was barred from entering those countries. At the same time, she explained her trip to Europe by the need to inform the world community about Russian crimes in Ukraine.

To the criticism of the concentration on sexual crimes, Denisova said that these crimes should also be mentioned. She received information about them from the UNICEF hotline, where her daughter worked.

"One can agree here that such a message is really inconvenient. But the cruelty of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine was not only in my stories, but also in the reports of other human rights activists and ordinary citizens — those who were witnesses or victims. This takes time. You can convey this information in a different way. But when you tell our Western partners about Ukraine, you feel that they are tired of our situation. They all want to live in peace, in harmony, to see nothing, to hear nothing, and not to think about this war which just has to end somehow. "Somehow" is the key word. Thatʼs why arguments are sometimes tough," she said.

• On May 31, the Verkhovna Rada dismissed Denisova. An MP Pavlo Frolov then said that the Servant of the People faction had initiated Denisovaʼs dismissal because since the beginning of the war she had hardly exercised her authority to organize humanitarian corridors, protect and exchange prisoners, oppose deportation of people and children from the occupied territories and other human rights activities. All these issues were forced to be resolved by Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
• Denisova herself called her dismissal illegal and said she would appeal it in court.