"There will be no exchange of prisoners until Ukraine fulfills its obligations," said Olga Kobtseva, head of the LPR working group on prisoner exchange. She means the removal of legal claims from released citizens.
How many people are offered to exchange is unknown. A source close to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky notes that it is not always possible to quickly fulfill all legal procedures. "For example, a decision of the district court is required, in which the judge is absent, or he is not going to withdraw claims," the source said.
The proposal to exchange 11 prisoners from Ukraine earlier came from the head of the Ukrainian delegation in the Tripartite Contact Group for the Settlement of the Conflict in Donbass Leonid Kravchuk. Kiev sent a corresponding request to the LPR and the DPR with a proposal to exchange prisoners before the New Year.
The head of the Russian delegation to the TKG, Boris Gryzlov, emphasized that Kiev should be the first to fulfill its legal obligations, but the Ukrainian side is specifically slowing down the implementation of the exchange. This threatens the emergence of "insurmountable obstacles" to a new exchange.
The previous time, the exchange of prisoners between the LPR, DPR and Ukraine was carried out on April 16, 2020.
Photo: from open sources