65 Ukrainians stuck on the Russian-Georgian border returned to Ukraine, – MFA

65 citizens were returned to Ukraine from the buffer zone on the Russian-Georgian border.

This was announced by Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga, Censor.NET reports .

“Among them are 10 women, 8 seriously ill. All of them were at the Georgian Dariali checkpoint in a de facto humanitarian crisis created by Russia’s actions. Ukrainian diplomats and consuls made every effort to return citizens and improve the conditions of their stay at the border, in particular with the involvement of international organizations,” the report says.

Sybiga recalled that in previous months, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, together with the relevant authorities, had already organized the return of a total of 44 citizens. Thus, the total number of Ukrainians who were successfully returned from the Dariali checkpoint in previous months amounted to 109 people.

“The humanitarian crisis on the Russian-Georgian border arose in the second half of June, when Russia purposefully began to sharply increase the number of Ukrainian citizens it deported to this checkpoint. The Ukrainian side has already publicly appealed to the Russian Federation to send them directly to the Ukrainian border, not to Georgia. This proposal remains in force. If Russia continues to ignore it, the only conclusion will be that the sharp increase in the number of deportees is a planned Russian operation against Ukraine,” the minister added.

As a reminder, it was previously reported that since the second half of June, Russia has significantly intensified the deportation of Ukrainian citizens across the border with Georgia, which has caused a humanitarian crisis in the buffer zone of the Dariali checkpoint, and some Ukrainians have announced the start of a hunger strike .

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reported at the end of June that they were aware of the problem of such Ukrainian citizens and were working on their return.