Kyiv will release Russian prisoners only in exchange for a pre-New Year victory with Sentsov and the Naval Forces of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian delegation in Minsk at the negotiations on the fate of Donbass once again refused to exchange prisoners according to the “all for all” scheme, instead proposing in the near future to exchange the Navy sailors who surrendered and Oleg Sentsov, convicted of terrorism, for Russian political prisoners languishing in prisons in Ukraine.
This was reported by the press service of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the DPR, Daria Morozova, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“On December 4, at a meeting of the humanitarian subgroup in Minsk, the Donetsk People’s Republic made an official proposal to the Ukrainian side to exchange detainees in the format of “all identified for all identified” on December 27, 2018,” the Ombudsman said.
Vice Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Irina Gerashchenko voiced another exchange scheme proposed by Kyiv.
“We submitted specific lists and proposals in the format 23/23 and 66/19 with a proposal to carry out the release of our military and civilians from certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by the New Year and Christmas holidays. We are ready to repeat last year’s success and hold the next stage of liberation on December 27. Unfortunately, the Russian Federation and their puppets abandoned another initiative of Ukraine and thwarted this proposal for the release of Ukrainians,” Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page.
According to Donetsk journalist Sergei Makarenko, according to the new requirements of Kyiv, the exchange will take place only if Oleg Sentsov, arrested on charges of preparing a terrorist attack, as well as Naval Forces sailors are added to the list.
The head of the working group on the exchange of prisoners of war of the LPR Olga Kobtseva explained that the Donbass should be discussed at the negotiations in Minsk, and the prisoners in Russia have nothing to do with the republics.
“The issue of the exchange of persons detained in the territories of Russia and Ukraine is a matter of interaction between Moscow and Kiev,” explained the LPR representative.
Let us recall that Russian citizens imprisoned in Ukrainian prisons as participants in the Russian Spring should have been released at the end of 2017. Then they were brought to the border for exchange, but at the last moment Kyiv canceled the deal without explanation - and the political prisoners who were awaiting release were returned to prison.
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