13:32 24.11.2017

Kyiv doing its best for prisoner swap – ombudsperson

2 min read
Kyiv doing its best for prisoner swap – ombudsperson

The Ukrainian side in the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the conflict in Donbas is making every effort for the exchange of hostages, Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner Valeria Lutkovska has said.

"The negotiating group is working to ensure the exchange [of hostages]. We are doing all we can for this. It's hard to say how much this situation [the conflict between "DPR" and "LPR"] will influence the swap," Lutkovska told Channel 5.

She said that the Ukrainian side proposed to exchange 306 people for 76 Ukrainian hostages.

"Unfortunately, the visits to Ukraine and Russia that we conducted with [Russian human rights commissioner] Tatyana Moskalkova have currently stopped," Lutkovska added.

As reported, Ukrainian Choice – Right of the People NGO leader Viktor Medvedchuk said on November 23 that it was currently impossible to exchange all prisoners and expected the first stage of the swap to take place according to the "306 for 74" formula.

"The Minsk agreements provide for exchanging prisoners 'all for all.' There are today 386 persons held in Ukraine sought by the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR/LPR). There are currently 157 persons sought by Ukraine in DPR/LPR, of whom 94 have been confirmed. However, Ukraine cannot carry out the exchange because of legislation. So we can't exchange all these people, while DPR/LPR want to exchange everyone," Medvedchuk told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.

He added that his appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin was intended to facilitate a proportional exchange, as a first step within the "all for all" framework.

"Therefore, in line with this proposition, which Putin and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill supported, we are counting on DPR/LPR releasing 74 persons in exchange for 306 persons held in Ukraine," Medvedchuk said.

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