Kyiv’s statements threaten to undermine the agreement on the release of persons detained in connection with the conflict in Donbas, the representative of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic in the humanitarian subgroup on Donbas and the head of the LPR prisoner exchange working group, Olha Kobtseva, said.
“Unfortunately, Ukraine’s statements run counter to the decisions of the Normandy meeting, which threaten to undermine the agreement on the release of detainees”, – Kobtseva said in a statement to RIA Novosti.
A representative of the Ukrainian People’s Republic explained that on 10 December, the day after the meeting in the Normandy format, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a statement on a step-by-step release of detainees, “which has nothing to do with the communiqué. According to Kobtseva, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko also repeatedly commented on the decisions of the Normandy meeting, which have nothing to do with the reality.
“We regard the statement of the head of the Security Council of Ukraine Bakanov about the alleged difficulties in preparing and conducting the exchange, as well as the need to exchange some “parallel rates” as an attempt to avoid the implementation of the previously announced obligations of the Ukrainian side in the negotiation process to carry out the procedural cleaning of people”, – the head of the LPR working group on prisoner exchange said.
Kobtseva called on Kyiv “to stop manipulating the public consciousness and spreading information that does not correspond to reality”.