The U.S. envoy urged the Russian president’s aide to continue the prisoner exchange process.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have discussed further efforts to release Ukrainian hostages, political prisoners and the format of a possible UN peacekeeping mission for occupied Donbas.
The Ukrainian side at the talks of the Minsk Tripartite Contact Group for the Donbas settlement will make every effort for the speedy release of all Ukrainian hostages, according to First Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s representative in the TCG’s humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says the introduction by the European Union of a visa-free regime for Ukrainian citizens and the release of Ukrainian hostages held in captivity by Russian-led militants in Donbas are major achievements of the Ukrainian diplomacy in 2017.
The Ukrainian side in Minsk has handed over to Russian representatives the lists of hostages at the negotiations of the Tripartite Contact Group for the Donbas settlement within the framework of the hostage swap proposal on a "309 for 87" formula, according to an UNIAN correspondent.
Pro-Russian militants include in their requirements for the exchange of Ukrainian hostages the demand for the release of former [Yanukovych era police task force] Berkut officers, terrorists and murderers, Ukraine's humanitarian envoy in the Trilateral Contact Group for the peaceful settlement in Donbas, First Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Gerashchenko said during her Parliament address, according to an UNIAN correspondent.