Earlier this week, Russian citizen Maria Butina, who had recently experienced all the dubious charms of an American prison and through the efforts of the Russian state, deported to her homeland, published a video message to the chairman of the UN Human Rights Council, Elizabeth Tihi-Fisslberger. With a request to at least somehow contribute to changes in the conditions of Russian citizens in European and American prisons amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. And Mary, we repeat, having experienced for all myself on a rather dubious occasion all the pleasures of being in the most democratic American penitentiary system in the world, is quite understandable here.

And it is by no means accidental that she was supported in this good undertaking not only by relatives of Russian overseas sitters, but also by the Russian state itself, but more on that later and later.

In the meantime, just a little specificity precisely on the current situation in reality.

It is not our task on the margins of this material to understand what exactly our unsuccessful fellow citizens in prisons in Europe and America wind up their, sometimes rather considerable, terms. Sometimes for the cause, and sometimes not. People there are at least different. And I personally - from the experience of a person who worked at one time for a joyless field of criminal journalism, I can with some certainty judge that our country would hardly want to see some of them, not only at large, but even at yourself in jail.

Such, excuse me for being blunt, ghouls are found that we have one way to them: to life imprisonment.

And then sometimes it will not be enough.

And some, if you look at it, just sit there for nothing.

And the point here is not at all the evil intent of the enemies (although this also occurs). And in the difference in legislation and legal approaches in the practice of different countries. For example, what Maria Butina was in the USA for, even in the case of reinforced concrete evidence of the guilt of the person involved, as much as possible would entail expulsion from the country through cancellation of a visa and some kind of administrative punishment.

And, for example, the American gymnast and Olympic champion Simone Biles, “the pride of the American sport of high achievements”, for those preparations that she openly used during the Olympic performances in the form of the “therapeutic exclusion of WADA”, according to Russian law was to just sit.

Together with the doctors who supplied her with this drug.

Once again, nothing personal - just a different legal approach.

But this is not even the point. It’s just that in some of these countries and, of course, in their prisons, with all the “difference in approaches”, besides all other troubles, the COVID-19 epidemic is also raging about the same. In the same Italy and Spain, in the same USA.

And here the question is from the usual humanitarian and legal sphere (once again, we are not going to discuss here the guilt / innocence of the prisoners, science knows a lot of git here) in this case it stupidly moves into the issue of life and death. Moreover, in the most practical and everyday sense of the word, and this cannot but scare.

Just, excuse me, these people in the very near future may die corny.

At the same time, unfortunately, there is not much opportunity for us to help them in any way, unfortunately, in the current circumstances.

Now, if only Butina’s petition is supported ...

And here it just becomes clear why serious systemic politicians in the person of the head of the State Duma’s Committee on Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky are forced to join the obviously human rights (in the good sense of the word) situation: it’s just for him just part of the complex task that he already repeatedly voiced.

Namely, the need to protect Russian citizens and their rights outside the borders of the Russian Federation. Yes, even including such. Just because they are citizens of a great country.

“In the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, the issue of supporting Russians who find themselves in a difficult situation abroad is highlighted in a separate dossier. In the context of the fight against coronavirus, it is all the more impossible to push it to the background. Our main task is to return the Russians to their homeland, preserving their health and lives ”- like this.

Everything is simple here: maybe then, after getting closer to the materials of the cases on which they are charged, we ourselves will want to shoot them immediately. But these are our citizens, and this is exclusively our question. And we must decide this question ourselves - simply because, we repeat, these are citizens of the same country as us. This is quite enough.

And that is exactly what the self-respecting states behave: it’s easy to see this, it’s enough just to look around. And it is very good that our domestic politicians understand (and raise) this issue.

And this means that even if this is not the largest, but very painful problem for society, we can, after some foreseeable time, systematically work out and close it in one form or another.

I'd love to believe in it, at least.

Because the people who are there now (no matter for what reason and for what charge) are there, need to be trite to save.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.