Ukrainian political prisoner Andrii Zachtei is on his way to Ukraine after several years of imprisonment in Crimea

Author:
Liza Brovko
Date:

Ukrainian political prisoner Andrii Zachtei, after serving his term of imprisonment in the Simferopol colony, spent several months under arrest in the Center for foreigners in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation. Now he is heading to Ukraine.

Zachtei told Graty about this.

Andrii Zakhtei was released in early February 2023 and, by court order, was to be deported to the territory controlled by Ukraine. However, due to the full-scale war, they did not do this and sent him under arrest.

On the evening of June 13, employees of the Ukrainian embassy in Latvia met the man at the Ubylinka border crossing, after which he was sent to Ukraine.

  • Andrii Zakhtey was detained on the night of August 6-7, 2016, in the area of the village of Suvorov in Crimea. According to the FSB, he was supposed to meet a sabotage group of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine, which was preparing explosions on the peninsula. Together with Zachtei, the occupation authorities detained Yevhen Panov. Both Ukrainians were kept in Moscowʼs Lefortovo pre-trial detention center for some time, then returned to Crimea. Political prisoners said that after their detention, they were brutally tortured, in particular, they were electrocuted for two days. The "Supreme Court of Crimea" sentenced Andriy Zakhtei to six and a half years of imprisonment.
  • During his imprisonment, Zakhtei was kept in the basement of the penal colony of the strict regime No. 1 in Russian-occupied Simferopol for two months. He was given such a "punishment" for allegedly violating the regime, despite his chronic illness.