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2022-07-24 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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Could US citizens captured in Ukraine be exchanged?
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This week SouthFront published the appeals and stories of US mercenaries Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, who were captured in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine in June 2022.
At the same time, the US media began to raise the question of what are the options of returning US citizens to their homeland. Apparently, given all the circumstances of Alexander Drueke’s and Andy Huynh’s detention, this is only possible through an exchange procedure.
US officials say they are in constant contact with their Ukrainian counterparts and are making every effort to include the mercenaries on the exchange list. Previously, the warring sides had already exchanged prisoners of war on several occasions.
However, from the point of view of Russia and the DPR, these individuals do not have the status of prisoners of war because they are citizens of a third country who took part in the conflict for fees. In other words, they are considered criminals who are accused of committing a number of crimes against citizens of Russia and the DPR.
In particular, they have been charged under Article 430 of the DPR Criminal Code. This article is identical to Article 359 of the Russian Criminal Code.
Under Article 430 of the Criminal Code of the DPR and Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, a mercenary is a person acting for the purpose of material reward who is not a citizen of a state participating in an armed conflict or hostilities, does not reside permanently in its territory, and has not been sent to perform official duties.
An important fact is that legal actions against detainees are carried out by DPR law enforcement agencies, not Russians. Apparently, this is due to the fact that in July 2022, the DPR authorities lifted the ban on the death penalty as a capital punishment. Previously, the other 3 foreign mercenaries (Shaun Pinner, Aidan Aslin, and Saadoun Brahim) had already been sentenced to death and are awaiting execution. The only chance for these convicts to stay alive was the act of pardon by the head of the DPR, Denis Pushylin.
It is likely that a similar sentence will be passed on Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh.
An exchange of mercenaries for DPR or Russian military personnel seems hardly probable due to their legal status. Does this mean that the Americans’ fate is sealed? Definitely not. There are procedures of political exchange of convicts, which have happened many times before between the USA and the Russian Federation (USSR). The last case took place on April 27, 2022, when US citizen Trevor Raudi Reed, who had been previously convicted in the Russian Federation, was exchanged for Russian citizen Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been convicted in the US. Legally, the procedure was formalised through acts of pardon.
Thus, it is possible for US citizens to avoid the death penalty and return home. There are about 400 Russian nationals in US prisons, a significant part of whom are convicted on political grounds. Perhaps the most striking example is Viktor Bout, who has already served half of his sentence in a US prison.
Read the rest at the link, which includes videographed statements by the two US detainees. 
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Posted by badanov 2022-07-24 00:00||
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Posted by Skidmark 2022-07-24 14:11||
2022-07-24 14:11||
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