Threats to Ukrainians is nothing but an intimidation attempt

The Syrian rebel fighters, who keep the Ukrainian citizen Anhar Kochneva in captivity, have announced that no Ukrainians will be set free alive. The self-styled mujahedin said this in a video the Ukraina TV channel beamed the other day. The video shows six balaclava-wearing people standing by a machine-gun in a scantily lit room.

“The embassies of Ukraine and Russia, the citizens of these countries, and the Iranians will from now on be the prey and the goal of all our forces. We are urging that no Ukrainians, Russians, or Iranians be allowed to leave Syria alive,” the statement says. “We are saying this in response to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement about the Ukrainian spy Anhar Kochneva who carried weapons and was an interpreter for Russian officers.” It will be recalled that Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry had called on Damascus a few days before to immediately rescue the Ukrainian woman and “bring the guilty to justice.”

The Day discussed this on the phone with Yevhen Ihnatovsky, the consul at the Ukrainian Embassy in Syria.

“This video was admittedly made by the same grouping that is now keeping our citizen in captivity. Once we saw it, we turned to a competent Syrian authority, in charge of ensuring safety for foreign diplomatic missions, and requested them to tighten security around the embassy.

“In spite of this, the Ukrainian mission continues to work in Damascus in a usual manner because there are some circumstances that require our presence here. The first is the Anhar Kochneva case. We are working daily with Syria’s ministers of foreign and internal affairs, the president’s chief of staff, and the Grand Mufti to have her freed. As far as we know, the grouping that keeps the Ukrainian woman is of an Islamist nature, so the clergy have an impact on them. We also got in touch with Syrian secret service chiefs who have formed special units to deal with this issue. We are staying in close contact with them.

“Another problem is to ensure the protection of the rights and interests of our citizens who are staying on in Syria in spite of recommendations from the Foreign Ministry and the Ukrainian Embassy in Syria.

“We advised the Ukrainians to leave the country as the security situation worsened. But, in spite of this, our compatriots, an estimate 500 to 700 people, still remain here. We also continue to do our best to help these individuals to be evacuated to Ukraine and have all the necessary documents. In this context, we are closely cooperating with the International Organization for Migration in buying air tickets not only for Ukrainian citizens, but also for the Syrian members of their families. We are doing this out of humanitarian considerations to prevent families from being disunited.

“As for Anhar Kochneva, the situation is rather difficult. What aggravates the question of her liberation is the fact that Syria’s opposition forces are very diverse and there are a lot of groupings that claim they belong, but in fact they do not, to the opposition. Among them there are many terrorist groups and those engaged in purely criminal activities. They kidnap, demand a ransom for, and rob people. We don’t know exactly which grouping is holding Anhar Kochneva. Unfortunately, representatives of neither the opposition forces nor the Syrian security authorities have any information to this effect. But we know the area where she is held. It is under complete control of the militarized opposition. I cannot say concretely which area it is, for this is confidential information. We are taking measures which I cannot disclose either, because it is an extremely sensitive matter which the media should not make public at the moment. Besides, this may have a negative effect on our citizen in question. In the course of time, it will be disclosed what measures the Ukrainian Embassy in Syria and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took. Meanwhile, we are making efforts not only in Syria, but also in some other countries: a number of diplomatic representations are involved in the Kochneva case. This question is under extremely strict supervision of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s top officials and is our most top-priority assignment here.

“As for concrete threats to the Ukrainians in Syria, I think it is nothing but an intimidation attempt on the part of some forces which want to achieve their goals. Let us hope this is the case and the kidnapers will not carry out their threats to Anhar Kochneva.

“While it is clear why the rebel fighters in the abovementioned video threaten the Russians and the Iranians (both Russia and Iran support the Syrian government), the threats to the Ukrainians were, in all probability, caused by the factor of Kochneva’s citizenship, all the more so that she has a Ukrainian passport. I am sure she kept it when she was being kidnapped, and the kidnapers could thus identify her citizenship.”