More than 170 Ukrainians held captive in Donbas, incarcerated in Russia – Klimkin

12:53, 27.05.2016 1 min read

Ukraine needs to achieve the liberation of at least 174 citizens held in captivity in Donbas and convicted in Russia, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said in a program aired by TV Channel 1+1.

The program anchor quoted Mark Feygin, a lawyer of Nadia Savchenko, as saying that about ten Russian servicemen were in custody in Ukraine, which could exchange them for Ukrainian citizens, and asked whether that exchange was being negotiated.

"Such negotiations are in progress, and we have repeatedly said that we will do our best to extract our political prisoners from Russia, from territories of the occupied Crimea, from Donbas," Klimkin said.

"We need to win another ten victories of the kind in Russia, 20 in the occupied Crimea and 144 in Donbas," the minister said.

The Russian political and military administration has more than once refuted claims of Kyiv and the West about the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.