Progress has been made in the issue of preparing direct talks with the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donbas republics concerning an exchange of prisoners, Ukrainian MP from the Batkivschyna faction Nadiia Savchenko said.

"The process has got off the ground. I can say that progress has been made and negotiations will be held. I have no more comments to make because everything that goes to the media space is very rapidly distorted. No one discloses plans before war," Savchenko said in an interview with the Ukrainian online newspaper Apostrophe.

When asked whether she was content with the course of developments, Savchenko said that "it could be moving faster if no one was hindering it, but, in principle, I am satisfied."

It was reported earlier that Savchenko had announced her readiness to visit the territories in eastern Ukraine not controlled by Kyiv in order to hold talks with their leaders.

Savchenko said on June 7 that the Ukrainian side should establish direct dialogue with representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People's Republics to resolve the issue of the Donbas region's return. She also said she was ready to hold negotiations with DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko and LPR leader Igor Plotnitsky.

For his part, Ukraine's second president and Kyiv's representative to the Trilateral Contact Group, Leonid Kuchma, said he did not object to direct dialogue being established between Savchenko and representatives of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions if this helped resolve the conflict in the region.

Savchenko said later that she was ready to hold negotiations on releasing Ukrainian servicemen currently in captivity with the DPR and LPR leaders, but not with people who introduce themselves as politicians of the self-proclaimed republics.