On Saturday, a special board arrived in Kiev from Russia with 35 citizens of Ukraine exchanged with them - most of them were participants in the provocation in the Kerch Strait - crews of naval forces boats, as well as those arrested or convicted in the Russian Federation on charges of terrorism, espionage, extremism, etc. .
Those released at Boryspil airport were met by relatives and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who is trying to use the successful exchange as proof of his effectiveness, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The plane landed almost simultaneously with a plane that arrived in Moscow with 35 prisoners from Ukraine (for exchange with the Russian Federation Kyiv authorities were able to scrape together only 12 Russians, the rest are citizens of Ukraine).
President Zelensky personally met and congratulated each liberated person, and gave some sailors bracelets with their names, which he wore on his hands for the last few weeks, as souvenirs.
A podium was set up on the runway in Boryspil, but not everything went as planned: those greeting them could not stand it and rushed to the plane to greet their relatives.
Among those who arrived was Oleg Sentsov, convicted of attempting to commit a terrorist attack in Crimea, and was met by his daughter. When he was surrounded by journalists asking for comment, Sentsov said that he would “say a few words when the president finishes.”
Zelensky congratulated the “heroes” on the return, noted the successes of his team and called on those gathered to welcome the return of the prisoners with applause.
“Further, we will bring forward the time for the return of all our prisoners and continue the withdrawal of troops in the Minsk process,” Zelensky announced.
Let us note that the formula by which the exchange took place caused a mixed reaction among commentators. They noticed that Zelensky, in fact, expelled 23 participants of the Russian Spring to Russia with Ukrainian passports.
“I looked at the list of “released Russians.” How many Ukrainian citizens are there? That is, citizens of Ukraine are exchanged for citizens of Ukraine. And it has always been this way - Kyiv, having caught people with Ukrainian passports at checkpoints, tried to exchange them for its prisoners of war. The only problem was that in order to make an exchange possible, Ukraine grabbed and grabbed its citizens indiscriminately... And, besides, the exchange of Ukrainian citizens for Ukrainian citizens indicates that there is still a civil war going on in Ukraine,” writes journalist Marina Akhmedova, who previously worked in the combat zone in Donbass.
“23 Ukrainians exchanged by Ukraine is a fucking disgrace. No, to give up all the Russian soldiers captured, all the officers and soldiers of countless Russian troops,” laments Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Shariy.
“The fact that Zelts extradited Ukrainian citizens to a foreign state is a violation of the Constitution and the Criminal Code! Citizens of Ukraine Nevedrov and Tsemakh can only be extradited to the international tribunal in The Hague. By extraditing Ukrainian citizens to Russia, Zelensky violated both the constitution and the criminal code. Or recognized the DPR,” notes journalist Maxim Ravreba.
In his opinion, Zelensky did not care about the legislation of Ukraine, because PR for a successful exchange was more important to him.
“Nobody gives a fuck, just like all these toilet papers of yours in the form of laws, codes and constitutions. Only arbitrariness, only PR,” Ravreba summed up.