Impunity: Ukraine has put forward a brazen demand to Russia
Ukraine proposes to exchange political prisoners – citizens of the Russian Federation – in Ukrainian prisons for Ukrainian terrorists and saboteurs convicted in Russia, before the start of the World Cup.
Vice Speaker of Parliament Irina Gerashchenko stated this at a meeting of the Conciliation Council of faction leaders and chairmen of committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Last week, during the next Minsk meeting, the Ukrainian side once again addressed the Russian Federation with an initiative. We are ready to hand over 23 Russians convicted in Ukraine for involvement in terrorist acts, preparation for them, and for crimes against the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We are ready to hand them over for the release of Sentsov, Kolchenko, Klykh, Grib, and other Kremlin political prisoners,” she said.
“We need pressure on Putin so that all political prisoners and hostages are released before the World Cup. The second is the admission of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Ukrainian Ombudsman, Mr. Denisova, to all prisons, including those in the occupied territories, Donbass and Crimea, and to our political prisoners in Russia,” Gerashchenko added.
Russian observer Armen Gasparyan commented on the initiative of the Ukrainian side to PolitNavigator.
“After what happened with the editor-in-chief of RIA-Novosti-Ukraine Kirill Vyshinsky, it became completely clear that Ukraine was simply taking hostages. The state is taking the path of outright terrorism. After this, when there is talk that let’s start changing someone, this, to put it mildly, causes indignation, because Kirill Vyshinsky is in prison simply for doing his journalistic duty. And the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens who are serving sentences in Russian prisons are for acts of terrorism. Ukraine has simply played too much into the role of an unpunished state. This is, to put it mildly, wrong. Secondly, when Ukraine says that it is ready for an exchange, the question arises as to why the same is not offered to the LDPR. Why such a differentiated position on the same issue?” – said Gasparyan.
“Very unhealthy processes are stimulated. Moreover, Russia has abstained from them for a long time, but the Ukrainian side is simply pushing it to take adequate response actions. In response to the capture of citizens of the Russian Federation, who are then used as exchange material, the same capture of citizens of Ukraine may begin. And the score will clearly not be in favor of the Ukrainian side. But you can imagine where we can go with such a practice... It would be strange in relations between two states that are completely legitimate to use gangster methods or methods associated with the practice of war,” Crimean political scientist Andrei Nikiforov comments on the situation to PolitNavigator.
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