Three OSCE officials continue to languish in detention despite appeals by the OSCE Ministerial Council

As the OSCE Ministerial Council convened in Vienna’s Hofburg Palace for its annual meeting, one issue surfaced in nearly every statement: the fate of the three OSCE officials detained by pro-Russian forces in April 2022 while performing their duties for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in eastern Ukraine.

The OSCE operated a mission in eastern Ukraine until Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The mission monitored and documented ceasefire violations, facilitated dialogue and brokered local truces to enable the repair of civilian infrastructure.

Most ministers in the plenary hall voiced solidarity and demanded the unconditional release of Vadym Golda, Maksym Petrov and Dmytro Shabanov.

Finnish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chair-in-Office Elina Valtonen said that she had “spared no effort to secure the release” of the three OSCE officials. “Together with the OSCE Secretary General and our partners, we are using every channel — public and private diplomacy — to press for their immediate release. We reiterate this call today: They must be released immediately,” she said.

Yet, despite those expressions of support, all three remain in detention with little apparent progress on their cases. In addition, the situation has recently grown more troubling.

On July 31, it became known that Maksym Petrov, who worked for the OSCE mission as an interpreter, had been transferred from a detention facility in Luhansk to a prison in Chelyabinsk in west-central Russia, according to the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group.

Ievgeniia Kapalkina, a lawyer from the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group acting as a representative of the family of Maksym Petrov, told SHR Monitor that, according to information received from the Petrov family, their son has been held in a specialized tuberculosis medical facility in the Chelyabinsk region since late October 2025. The family has not been informed of his specific medical diagnosis.

Dmytro Shabanov, who worked as a security assistant for the OSCE, was detained in April 2022 in the Luhansk region by pro-Russian forces and transferred to the Omsk penal colony in Siberia in March of this year, according to the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group. Vadym Golda, another security assistant, was detained in Donetsk, also in April 2022.

The three men were arrested despite performing official duties mandated by all 57 OSCE participating states and carrying documents confirming their immunity, the OSCE said.

Shabanov and Petrov were convicted of treason by a Russian-controlled court in Luhansk in September 2022 and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Golda was convicted of espionage by a Russian-controlled court in Donetsk in July 2024 and sentenced to 14 years.

The OSCE “unequivocally condemned” the sentencing of the three officials and demanded their immediate release.

Margaryta Shabanova, Shabanov’s wife, traveled to Vienna to campaign for her husband’s release on the margins of the OSCE Ministerial Council and seek support from the OSCE community. She was accompanied by Ievgeniia Kapalkina, who represents both the Petrov and Shabanov families, as well as Viktoria Nesterenko from the Ukrainian human rights organization ZMINA, which organizes campaigns for writing letters to political prisoners.

“I have one wish and this is to see my Dima finally back with our family,” Shabanova said.