(MENAFN- UkrinForm) The Ukrainian side is ready to hand over to Russia over 60 separatists who committed crimes against Ukraine for the sake of the release of Ukrainian hostages and political prisoners of the Kremlin.
The Ukrainian president's envoy on the peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas, First Deputy Chairwoman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Iryna Gerashchenko, said this at a briefing on Thursday, November 15, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.
"The Ukrainian side is ready for all compromises to make another release of political prisoners and hostages happen. We are ready to give the Russian Federation more than 20 Russians convicted in Ukraine for the sake of the release of the political prisoners of the Kremlin. We are ready to release through the pardon procedure more than 60 separatists involved in crimes against Ukraine, in order to free our military and civilians, including journalist Stanislav Aseyev, from the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk," Gerashchenko said.
She also recalled that the Ukrainian side had repeatedly included the names of captive servicemen in the lists that were announced at the talks in Minsk.
"I want to emphasize responsibly that all of our servicemen - Serhiy Hlondar, Oleksandr Korinkov, Bohdan Pantiushenko, Deyev, Ivanchuk, Oryshchuk, and others - were in all our lists that we submitted during these years at the meetings of groups in Minsk with the demand to immediately release them. I have the impression that the other side, aware of the heroism of these people and seeing how we fight for them, on the contrary, creates barriers for the liberation of those who are very important to Ukraine," the parliamentarian said.
In total, about 70 Ukrainian political prisoners, including Ukrinform journalist Roman Sushchenko, are currently held in Russia and in Russian-occupied Crimea. Sushchenko was sentenced to 12 years in a high-security penal colony for alleged espionage.
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