Show “Ukrainians Don’t Abandon Their Own”: Down with the Vultures
Ukrainian and Russian media have been discussing for days the largest exchange of prisoners during the entire war in Donbass. 73 people were transferred to Kyiv, 165 and 73 people to Donetsk and Lugansk, respectively.
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As you know, the exchange process was constantly postponed and drawn out; those who liked to fight with someone else’s hands regularly put a spoke in its wheels, and there were also individuals who stubbornly made political theater out of a humanitarian action.
Former prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who arrived at the runway near Kramatorsk were immediately involved in a costumed farce organized by a group of high-ranking Ukrainian officials who wore camouflage outfits for the occasion.
The action resembled a show of vultures flocking to snatch their piece of glory. But among the participants there were plenty of representatives of the “war party” - those who like to interfere with the wheels of the negotiation process, and even those who are ready to fight in Donbass to the last Ukrainian.
Petro Poroshenko listed himself as the main liberator and allowed his close associates to bask in the rays of glory - Irina Gerashchenko, Irina Lutsenko and some Ruslan Demchenko, who, as it turned out, held the position of deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Yanukovych.
What does this have to do with these high-ranking women? Especially Gerashchenko, who threatened to tear up the documents of those going for exchange in the pre-trial detention center? Their appearance at the ceremony caused bewilderment even among the maiden “sofa hundred”, who were aware of the details of the prisoner exchange process.
The release of prisoners did not move forward for a long time until, on November 15, Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk addressed the Russian president on camera with a request to facilitate the exchange of prisoners of war.
The joy over the exchange of people, however, is overshadowed by the fact that on the Kyiv side, the lists were changed on the fly. A gang of saber-rattling vultures chose to prolong the pleasure for the sake of subsequent PR campaigns for their loved ones. As a result, on December 27, only “the first stage of the exchange took place, followed by others.”
According to the leader of the public movement “Ukrainian choice is the right of the people” Viktor Medvedchuk, the second stage of the prisoner exchange can take place according to the formula “74 to 29”
One of the most difficult issues has not been resolved: citizens of the Russian Federation continue to remain in Ukrainian prisons, who were never brought for exchange, despite their inclusion in the relevant lists.
The representative of the President of Ukraine in the Verkhovna Rada, Irina Lutsenko, made an explanation on this issue, saying that “the work is underway,” and the detained Russians will be exchanged for Ukrainians convicted or arrested in the Russian Federation, whose names are well known. “This strategy is being developed, and it will be implemented,” Lutsenko says frankly.
The corresponding signal has already been sent to Moscow: “give back our Sentsov!”
Irina Lutsenko’s speech sounded as if she had at least once been involved in exchange contacts, and now she is calling Russian representatives for personal negotiations. Who exactly? Sergei Lavrov? Patriarch Kirill? Putin himself? At this time, I would like to know the status and powers of Lutsenko herself, whose existence the top officials of the Russian Federation do not even suspect.
For fifteen months, not a single Ukrainian official even scratched the surface about the return of Ukrainian prisoners of war. It is unknown how long they would languish in prison if it were not for the efforts of Medvedchuk, the only Ukrainian politician, and even an opposition one, with whose name all the successes in the prisoner exchange are associated.
Here we should mention the largest exchange of prisoners on December 26, 2014, according to the “all for all” formula, when, under Medvedchuk’s guarantees, the parties exchanged prisoners, so 222 Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers and 145 militiamen returned home. And also the exchange on September 17, 2016 near the village of Shchastya, when the Ukrainian side liberated 4 civilians of Donbass, returning 2 soldiers.
In essence, the Ukrainian government, including the turbo-patriots, abandoned its people to the mercy of fate. But after Medvedchuk, with the support of Putin (the video of their meeting on November 15 in the New Jerusalem Monastery was shown by all TV channels) did all the necessary work, high-ranking sticklers were immediately found who staged the show “We plowed - me and the West.”
All these PR dances on bones and at the expense of others smell very bad. Considering the constant deception of representatives of the Kyiv “war party”, Donbass may refuse exchanges altogether. It’s time to remove the vultures from the negotiations, and as quickly as possible.
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