Kyiv calls Moscow's position on Donbas prisoner exchange 'blackmail'
Russia blackmailed Ukraine on the issue of prisoner exchange in Donbas, said Iryna Gerashchenko, Ukraine's first deputy parliamentary speaker and representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group.
"As we can see from the claims [by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov], Russia continues blackmailing Kyiv with hostages, demanding amnesty for the militants, and tying it to another clause of the Minsk agreements: the release of illegally imprisoned persons. I think it is this position that is an answer to the question as to why the hostage-release operation over the Easter failed," Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook on Wednesday after talking to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who attended a meeting of Normandy quartet ministers in Berlin.
"I responsibly declare, that we use all possible international platforms and mechanisms, for the sake of securing the release of our guys. And, this pressure on Russia must come not only from Ukraine, but from the whole world," she added.
Earlier on Wednesday, Lavrov told reporters after the ministerial meeting, that Moscow reaffirmed its commitment to the Donbas prisoner exchange, under the principle fixed in the Minsk agreements.