LUGANSK, June 8. /TASS/. International organizations left unanswered requests by the Lugansk People’s Republic to inspect the confinement conditions of its servicemen captured by the Ukrainian side, LPR human rights commissioner Viktoria Serdyukova told TASS on Wednesday.

"We asked repeatedly, I addressed the international organizations with a request to visit, to inspect the housing conditions of our servicemen. At this time, there has been no feedback but even what we observe on the Internet gives us grounds to think that the detention of our POWs on Ukrainian territory violates the norms of international law. Beginning with their living conditions and ending with the presence - it even can be observed visually - of the signs of torture, violence," the ombudswoman said.

According to her, the Ukrainian side is dodging the negotiation process on swapping the prisoners. The office of the LPR human rights commissioner has already received over 100 appeals from the relatives of the republic’s servicemen who were captured in Ukraine. "All these appeals that we or other agencies receive, we are sending to be included in lists for a prisoner exchange," the commissioner added.

The situation at the Donbass engagement line flared up on February 17. The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) reported the most massive bombardments by the Ukrainian armed forces over the past months. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, noting that the operation was aimed at the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.