Kuban opposition activist Pyotr Lyubchenkov granted asylum in Ukraine

The Odessa Court of Appeal has pronounced the decision to grant refugee status to Pyotr Lyubchenkov. The opposition activist has reported about this on his Facebook page.

The "Caucasian Knot" has informed that Pyotr Lyubchenkov was one of the organizers of the action against the Russian policy in Ukraine, which was to be held in Krasnodar in August 2014, but failed. Pyotr Lyubchenkov and Darya Polyudova, activists of opposition organizations, were included in the list of terrorists and extremists of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian   Federation (known as "Rosfinmonitoring"). Pyotr Lyubchenkov left for Ukraine, where he sought asylum. Russia addressed Ukraine with a request to extradite Pyotr Lyubchenkov.

The activist was initially rejected in asylum by the Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian officials justified their decision by the fact that Pyotr Lyubchenkov had provided insufficient evidence of his persecution for political reasons, the "Radio Liberty" reports.

The decision pronounced by the Odessa Court of Appeal went into effect. However, according to Pyotr Lyubchenkov, officials of the migration service filed a cassation to the Supreme Administrative Court. "They will try to reverse the court's decision to extradite me to Russia," said the activist as quoted on January 15 by the "Gromadske Radio".

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.