France, Germany and the United Kingdom have demanded that Russia immediately and unconditionally release three former staff members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) who have been held in detention since 2022.

The joint statement by the three countries, known as the E3, was delivered on Thursday, 12 November, at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna by Germany's ambassador to the OSCE, Sabine Stöhr, on behalf of France, Germany and the UK. It named the three men as Vadym Golda, Maksym Petrov and Dmytro Shabanov, all former staff of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.

"They are not bargaining chips. They are our colleagues, and they should be at home with their families," the statement said.

Grave concern over Golda's health

The E3 expressed grave concern about reports concerning Golda's health. He has been transferred to a medical correctional facility in Russia's Tambov region, a development the statement said raised further concerns about his health and treatment.

According to the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group, cited by The Insider, Golda was transferred to Medical Correctional Facility No. 7 of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service, in the settlement of Polevoy in the Kirsanovsky District of the Tambov region. His relatives said he last contacted his family on 15 October and that his transfer had been expected on 19 October. They said he had never had tuberculosis and had not suffered from alcohol or drug dependence, and there has been no official information about his condition.

Golda was the third of the three former OSCE employees to be transferred from occupied Ukrainian territory to a prison inside Russia. In 2025, Dmytro Shabanov was transferred to Penal Colony No. 9 in Russia's Omsk region, while Maksym Petrov was sent to Penal Colony No. 1 in the Chelyabinsk region.

Sentenced in 2022 and 2024

Golda, who worked as a security assistant for the OSCE monitoring mission, was detained by Russian forces in April 2022. In July 2024, a Russia-installed court in the occupied part of the Donetsk region sentenced him to 14 years in a strict-regime penal colony on charges of espionage.

Shabanov and Petrov were each sentenced to 13 years in prison in September 2022. Russia-backed separatists in the so-called "Luhansk People's Republic" accused them of treason and of passing information to US intelligence agencies. The OSCE has rejected the accusations against its employees and repeatedly demanded their release.

On 11 November, leaders of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly also expressed concern over Golda's transfer, noting that Articles 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibit the forcible transfer and deportation of protected civilians from occupied territories.

A warning to international missions

The E3 statement said Russia's treatment of the three men was a direct affront to the OSCE and every participating state, and set a dangerous precedent for those serving in international missions.

"Personnel deployed under an international mandate must be able to perform their duties without fear of arbitrary detention, politically motivated prosecution or imprisonment," the statement said.

The three countries urged Russia to release the men immediately and unconditionally and return them safely to their families. Pending their release, they called on Moscow to provide reliable information about their location and condition, ensure they receive appropriate medical care, and allow them regular contact with their families.

The OSCE said there was still no reliable, independently verified information about the detention conditions or health of any of the three men, and demanded that its representatives and the International Committee of the Red Cross be granted unhindered access to them.

Russia was among the states that approved the creation of the OSCE monitoring mission in Ukraine in 2014. In March 2022, however, Moscow blocked an extension of its mandate, and the mission ceased operations the following month. Read the full E3 statement on GOV.UK.