The Verkhovna Rada First Vice-Speaker and Ukrainian representative to the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup, Iryna Gerashchenko, has confirmed Kyiv's readiness to transfer the prisoners requested by the self-proclaimed Donbas republics in accordance with Ukrainian law.

"We are ready to transfer those whose transfer is allowed by Ukrainian law in order to get back the confirmed Ukrainians. But we will not yield to blackmail and cannot release those who do not fall under the Minsk Agreements in any way, such as the Berkut servicemen suspected of killing the heroes of the Heavenly Hundred," Gerashchenko wrote on her Facebook page on Wednesday evening after the humanitarian subgroup met in Minsk.

She said she had asked OSCE coordinator Toni Frisch to attend the trial of the former Berkut servicemen, speak with the families of the deceased, and personally tell those people "about the initiatives of certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions 'neutrally' supported by the coordinator."