15:52 15.02.2018

Poroshenko: My conversation with Putin mostly dealt with Donbas peacekeepers, captive swap

2 min read
Poroshenko: My conversation with Putin mostly dealt with Donbas peacekeepers, captive swap

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he discussed prospects for deploying a UN peacekeeping mission to Donbas and the liberation of captives in his telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

"Our press release made this public, the purpose [of the conversation] mainly included two components. Component one is what was voiced exactly three years ago, in early 2015, while Minsk 2 was being drawn up. We vitally need peacekeepers. Nobody embraced my proposal at the time, but now, after three years of painstaking efforts, an absolute majority of the United Nations Security Council member states plus those who support Ukraine firmly insist on the absolute necessity of a UN peacekeeping mission," Poroshenko told journalists on Thursday.

He said he envisioned a peacekeeping mission to be deployed throughout the entire occupied territory, a mission that "will be empowered to establish order, hold people accountable, disarm illegal armed groups and bring peace to Ukrainian soil, and provide conditions for reintegrating these territories back to Ukraine."

The second component discussed during the conversation concerns the people whom Russia is holding in captivity, Poroshenko said. "We definitely cannot stop in our efforts to get our hostages freed, which is actively promoted by both Ms. Iryna [Gerashchenko, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group humanitarian subgroup and Verkhovna Rada first deputy speaker] and my entire team. Seventy-four hostages were freed before New Year's, and I discussed specific details, specific names, and specific lists, including both those whom we have to return from the occupied territories and those we have to return from Russia. I can't and won't give you any names now, because this would hinder the return process," he said.

Poroshenko said his team and he were doing all they could "to return home our soldiers held illegally in prisons in the occupied territory: Mr. Suschenko, Mr. Sentsov, Mr. Kolchenko, the Crimean Tatars, and others held in the territory of the Russian Federation."

"The conversation dealt mainly with this," Poroshenko said.

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