MOSCOW, April 1. /TASS/. Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova has asked Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk to help with the release of employees of a Rosatom unit who are held at a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
"I have sent an appeal to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk to protect the rights of Rosatom’s civilian employees that were earlier illegally apprehended on the territory of Ukraine and requesting urgent measures to release them," Moskalkova said on Telegram.
She said that the Rosatom employees were engaged in cargo delivery to the Rovno NPP and are still being held by the Ukrainian side. "A situation in which civilian staff is used by one side of a conflict to achieve some goals is unacceptable," Moskalkova said. "I am personally overseeing the situation with the Rosatom employees."
It was earlier reported that employees of the central office of JSC Atomspetstrans (a Rosatom unit) Vladimir Lapin, Ilgiz Khusnetdinov, Ivan Kryachko and Vladislav Shishkin on February 23 delivered a cargo to the Rovno nuclear plant in Ukraine under a contract. Since then, the Russian specialists have been unable to return to Russia. Rosatom State Corporation, through the permanent mission of the Russian Federation to international organizations in Vienna, has notified the secretariat of the International Atomic Energy Agency abou this fact, expressing alarm and concern over the unacceptable situation.