Kiev does not recognize any other formats for the exchange of detainees other than the existing one approved during the negotiations of the Trilateral Contact Group to settle the situation in Donbass
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this on 11 February, answering journalists’ questions during his trip to Donbas. He stressed that Ukraine only agreed to swap “all for all” and viewed other proposed formats as provocations.
The statement was a reaction to a comment on the possible return of four Ukrainian nationals convicted of espionage from territories outside Kiev’s control in Donbas. The “separatists” decided not even to exchange them, but simply to extradite them to Ukraine as a goodwill gesture.
Their only demand was that Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the political council of the Opposition Platform for Life party, should be the Ukrainian negotiator of this extradition. However, Kiev rejected such a proposal.
In his statement, Zelensky called this position correct – it appears from his words that observance of the “correct” format is more important than the release of people.
“We don’t know any other formats of exchange. There are no other formats of exchange that we recognise. And everyone should understand that all those exchange formats that we had, they were according to the proper format”, – the Ukrainian president said.
As EADaily reported, in September 2020, the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic’s ambassador to the contact group and the foreign minister of the Donetsk people’s republic, Nataliya Nikonorova, said that negotiations on a new prisoner exchange between the conflicting sides in Donbas were impossible without the Ukrainian authorities revising the resolution on local elections.