Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Valeria Lutkovska during a meeting with her Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova asked to consider the possibility of placing Ukrainian citizen Stanyslav Klykh, who has been imprisoned in Russia, to an establishment situated as close as possible to the border with Ukraine so that his relatives could visit him.

As reported on the official website of the Ukrainian ombudsman, on December 26, Ukrainian ombudsman Lutkovska and Moskalkova first visited pretrial detention center in Simferopol in the occupied Crimea, then - pretrial detention center in Mykolaiv.

"The main result of the second meeting of the ombudsmen of the two countries has become an agreement on assistance in the organization of regular visits of ombudsmen to monitor the observance of the rights of their citizens, who are located in places of confinement in the territory of another state," the statement says.

In particular, Moskalkova expressed a desire to meet with Russian citizens held in penitentiaries in Odesa. Lutkovska, in turn, expressed a desire to come see Ukrainian citizens who are currently in penitentiaries in Moscow, including Yevhen Panov, Roman Suschenko, and others, it said.

Moskalkova noted substantial advancements on the issue of transfer of those Ukrainian citizens currently imprisoned in the territory of Crimea to penal colonies in Ukraine where they could further serve their sentences. "Therefore, we hope to see the agreements reached at the first meeting between the ombudsmen in Minsk implemented in the near future," it said.