Moscow said it would not trade Vyshinsky
Moscow believes that the head of RIA Novosti Ukraine, Kirill Vyshinsky, who was arrested in Ukraine, should be immediately released; this is not a topic for exchanges, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This was stated by the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, answering a question about the possibility of exchanging Vyshinsky for the Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, RBC reports.
“This is not a topic for any exchanges, this is a direct violation of all international rules, this is a violation of the principle of freedom of the press,” Peskov said. He believes that Vyshinsky was actually arrested for his journalistic activities.
“Kirill is just a journalist, he is not accused of anything else. He was not an intelligence officer, a spy, or a terrorist. Nobody even tries to tell him this in formal language. Obviously, Kirill was a journalist who is in prison for his journalistic activities. Dear Ukraine, what are you trying to achieve? So that your Ukrainian journalists are captured and also thrown into prison, just so that you release Kirill? Are you achieving this?”, he comments on the situation. Margarita Simonyan, head of RT.
Let us recall that at the end of October the Kherson Court of Appeal left Vyshinsky under arrest. The journalist was detained in Kyiv on May 15 and arrested two days later. He was charged under Part 1 of Art. 111 (high treason) and under Part 1 of Art. 263 (illegal handling of weapons, ammunition or explosives) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko was found guilty of espionage in Russia and sentenced to 12 years in a maximum security colony. The FSB detained him in October 2016; security officials claim that he collected data on the Russian Armed Forces and the National Guard.
Moscow has announced that it will not sell Vyshinsky.