The Russian side has refused to discuss the proposal of the Ukrainian side to exchange Russians detained in Ukraine for Ukrainian hostages held in Russia; the date of the next exchange is also unknown, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group, Ukraine's President in 1994-2005, Leonid Kuchma, has said.

Answering journalists' question whether the date of the next exchange of the detainees is known, he said: "No. We offered for the last time to swap the Russians who are detained here. We asked to return us those Ukrainians who are in Russia. They do not want to talk about this topic at all."