Russia suspends prisoner exchange to create impression of Ukraine’s inaction – Coordination Center
Russia has suspended prisoner exchanges in an attempt to influence society and create the impression that the Ukrainian government is not working on this issue.
A representative of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Petro Yatsenko, said this in an interview with Suspilne.
According to him, there is no point in Ukraine holding Russian prisoners.
– “They are trying to convince us that nothing is happening, look. But in fact, the work continues, we are not sitting idle, we are constantly working to organize the next exchanges,” he said.
Yatsenko added that Ukraine is ready for a dialogue and puts forward various proposals to the enemy, including the creation of a coordination headquarters together with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the creation of “mixed medical commissions” (a tool provided for in the Third Geneva Convention).
– This is a commission consisting of two representatives of a neutral country and one representative of the holding country, i.e. Ukraine. A similar commission should be formed by the Russian side so that these commissions, when visiting places of detention, can identify prisoners of war who need medical care and should be repatriated,” he said.
The representative of the Coordination Center emphasized that Russia must fulfill its international agreements and arrangements that it has signed. Russians at the diplomatic level, in particular at the UN, claim that they comply with everything, but de facto they do not.
Earlier, the Coordination Headquarters reported that Moscow had actually frozen the prisoner exchange process. No exchanges between Ukraine and the Russian Federation have taken place since August 7, when 22 Ukrainians returned home.
