Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he is taking steps to support the release of Ukrainian civilians taken hostage by the Russian military who are not subject to the military prisoner exchange programme.

The UK consistently draws attention to Russia's abhorrent actions in Ukraine, including arbitrary detentions of civilians. In the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, alongside other participating states, we have invoked the Moscow Mechanism four times since Russia's full-scale invasion. The most recent of these reports, published in April, exposed Russia's arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Ukrainian civilians. We call again on Russia to uphold its obligations under International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law, and to release all arbitrarily detained civilians.