‘Political theatre’: OSCE condemns 13-year sentences for its own staff in occupied Luhansk
Vienna — The OSCE has condemned the sentencing of two of its former Ukrainian staff members to thirteen years in prison by a court in the Russia-backed ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’, calling the proceedings a political theatre and demanding the men’s immediate release.
Dmytro Shabanov, a former security assistant to the organisation’s monitoring mission, and Maksym Petrov, a former interpreter, were convicted this week of high treason and espionage after closed trials in Luhansk. A third former staff member, Vadym Golda, remains in detention. All three were seized by Russia-backed forces in the spring, after the mission’s international monitors had withdrawn.
«These sentences are political theatre in an inhumane and repugnant way,» the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, said in a joint statement with Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, who described the charges as fabricated and the verdicts as a violation of the organisation’s privileges and immunities — and of basic decency.
The men worked for the Special Monitoring Mission, whose international staff left Ukraine when Russia invaded in February. Its Ukrainian national personnel — drivers, interpreters, security staff — could not leave with them, and several were detained in occupied areas within weeks. The OSCE has insisted that its employees were locally recruited civilians performing administrative duties, and that they remain protected by their status as staff of an international organisation of which Russia is a member.
The trials were held behind closed doors, without independent observers, on charges carrying no credible evidence that has been made public. Western governments joined the OSCE’s condemnation this week; Moscow has not commented in detail, and the de facto authorities in Luhansk said the men admitted guilt — a claim made worthless, diplomats noted, by the conditions of their detention.
Behind the institutional language lies a simpler story: two men who translated and drove for the world’s observers now face thirteen years in the prisons of a war they spent their working lives documenting. The OSCE says it will not rest until they are free. It has, at present, no lever but its voice.
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