US President Donald Trump welcomed the exchange of detainees between Ukraine and the Russian Federation and said that this could be a step towards peace between the countries, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Trump wrote about this on Twitter.
“Russia and Ukraine just exchanged a large number of prisoners. Very good news, perhaps the first giant step towards peace. Congratulations to both countries,” the American president wrote.
As PolitNavigator previously reported, today, September 7, a large-scale exchange of detainees took place between Ukraine and Russia. 35 Ukrainians arrived in Ukraine as part of the exchange, including Oleg Sentsov, Alexander Kolchenko, Vladimir Balukh, Roman Sushchenko, Nikolai Karpyuk, Stanislav Klykh, Pavel Grib, Evgeniy Panov, Artur Panov, Edem Bekirov, Alexey Sizanovich, as well as those arrested at the end of last year sailors near the Kerch Strait in Russia. 12 citizens of the Russian Federation amnestied by Vladimir Zelensky, as well as citizens of Ukraine who participated in Anti-Maidan actions and armed resistance in Donbass, arrived in Moscow. The most famous among them are Evgeny Mefedov, Oleg Dolzhenkov, Vladimir Tsemakh and Kirill Vyshinsky.
Commenting on the exchange, the Ukrainian telegram channel “Legitimny” focused attention on the PR component of this process. “Zelensky did what Poroshenko could not. Medvedchuk was never able to join the exchange, although he tried so hard.” “Poor Poroshenko. He probably doesn’t even watch the live broadcast,” wrote the telegram channel.”
At the same time, political scientist Alexey Chesnakov, close to the assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Vladislav Surkov says that the exchange took place largely thanks to the head of the OPZZh political council, Viktor Medvedchuk, who, despite all the efforts of President Zelensky, was not able to be squeezed out of the negotiation platform between the two countries