LDNR took an unprecedented step to catch Kyiv in a lie
The DPR and LPR accused Ukraine of disrupting the exchange of detainees and published name lists of prisoners whom they were ready to hand over to the Ukrainian authorities in exchange for their detainees.
Kommersant writes about this, specifying that the accusations were made against the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andrei Ermak.
“Publishing the lists is a precedent. And, apparently, such a step is intended to put pressure on the Ukrainian authorities, who have recently often abandoned preliminary agreements,” the article notes.
The Lugansk list contains 11, and the Donetsk list – 10 names. The republics directly say that representatives of Kyiv, including Ermak, “directly and openly refused” the exchange of identified persons.
“First, under the pretext that they allegedly would not have time to prepare ten people for the exchange so quickly. And then representatives of Ukraine cynically stated that they would not take eight people now, because they wanted to take much more later,” said DPR Ombudsman Daria Morozova. “We express our hope that Mr. Ermak will find the courage and time to apologize to the relatives and friends of the people whose hopes of returning home the head of the president’s office likes to talk about on air so brightly and colorfully.”
In turn, the head of the LPR exchange working group, Olga Kobtseva, in turn accused Ermak of lying: he previously said that Kyiv is not conducting direct negotiations with Donetsk and Lugansk.
“I would like to remind you that Mr. Ermak personally participated in the video conference where the issue of prisoner exchange was discussed,” Kobtseva said.
In addition, the head of the DPR delegation at the negotiations in the contact group, Natalya Nikonorova, clarified that Donetsk and Lugansk were ready to receive only 16 people, giving Kyiv 19, but representatives of Ukraine “cynically rejected” this proposal.
The publication points out that it has never gone so far as to publish lists of names before an exchange was carried out in order to shame or force one of the parties to the negotiations to make concessions.
“The decision to take such a step was unlikely to have been taken by the republics without the consent of the Russian curators of Donbass, and perhaps even on the initiative of the latter. After the videoconference on March 26, Moscow did not hide its dissatisfaction that Kyiv had changed its position on previously agreed decisions.
In particular, on the issue of the Advisory Council (a platform for direct contacts between Kiev and representatives of Lugansk and Donetsk). Andrei Ermak and Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak agreed to create it, but by March 26, the Ukrainian side changed its mind,” the publication says.
The newspaper emphasizes that the publication by the DPR and LPR of the names of the prisoners they were ready to give to Kyiv looks like an element of pressure.
“It is not a fact that the publication of these lists will have a serious destructive impact. But this is another attempt to confirm their subjectivity and the weakness of the Kyiv authorities, which, due to numerous disagreements, are moving into the usual phase of the struggle for political survival for Ukraine,” Alexander Gushchin, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, commented on the situation.
The LPR and DPR took an unprecedented step to catch Kyiv in a lie.