During the meeting of the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group for resolving the situation in Donbas in Minsk, the Ukrainian side has again demanded that the Russian Federation provide an official response to the proposal to exchange Russian criminals for Ukraine's political prisoners, however, the Russian side completely blocked the issue of the release of hostages, First Deputy Speaker of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada and Ukraine's envoy to the TCG humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko has said.

"The Ukrainian side today has once again appealed to the representatives of the Russian Federation to immediately provide a formal response to the proposal to hand over to them 23 Russian criminals in exchange for political prisoners of the Kremlin. We are also ready to pardon several dozen separatists in exchange for 20 Ukrainians, civil and military - who are illegally and for years kept in the occupied Donbas," Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook on Tuesday evening.

At the same time, she informed that the representatives of Moscow took a destructive position and blocked the issue of the release of the hostages.

"Unfortunately, the destructive stance of Moscow, which openly declared on the holding of "elections" in the ORDLO and is trying to intervene in the election campaign in Ukraine, putting stakes on loyal candidates, if only not Poroshenko, has completely blocked the issue of the release of hostages. The whole world is fighting [for Ukrainian film director Oleh, imprisoned in the colony of the strict regime] Sentsov, and Moscow demonstrates contempt and inability to negotiate to the whole world," said Gerashchenko.