“Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 epidemic, being in American prisons, both KV Yaroshenko and other unjustly convicted and detained compatriots is completely unacceptable. We hope that the US authorities will soon show humanism and allow our citizens to return home, ”the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department said in a comment.
The ministry recalled that Yaroshenko was sentenced in the US to 20 years in prison "on charges based entirely on the testimony of fake intelligence agents."
For ten years, the Russian, as noted in the Foreign Ministry, was faced with "an unacceptably irresponsible attitude to the state of his health on the part of the American authorities."
At the same time, Russia has repeatedly proposed that the United States resolve the issue of the release of Yaroshenko at all possible levels, including through the mechanisms of the 1983 Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.
“However, each time the consideration of our requests was delayed, after which there followed an unjustified refusal,” the Foreign Ministry said.
They emphasized that in a pandemic, the presence of Russians in American prisons becomes risky.
“As early as March 24, a message was sent to the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on this occasion from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov calling for the release of all citizens of our country from imprisonment for humanitarian reasons. So far, there hasn’t been a reaction, ”the Russian department noted.
At the end of April, it was reported that Yaroshenko, who complained about the symptoms of coronavirus, still did not test for this infection in an American prison.
Earlier, cellmate Yaroshenko died in a US prison from a disease similar in symptoms to a coronavirus.