LPR ready to hand over 44 prisoners to Ukraine
Prisoners from the Sukhodolsky penal colony in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) who were convicted before 2014 have expressed the desire to be transferred to Kyiv’s territory to serve the remainder of their sentences.
The prisoners made this known when they were visited by Toni Frisch, coordinator of the OSCE’s Humanitarian Working Group, separatist media outlets report. Roman Vedmedenko, head of the LPR’s interdepartmental commission for transmission of persons convicted prior to 2014, confirmed that the commission had considered the convicts’ requests. “For 44 of them, we have decided that we are willing to transfer them to the territory controlled by Ukraine”.
However, Olga Kobtseva, the LPR’s representative to the Humanitarian Working Group, added that Ukraine has not yet agreed to the transfer of the convicts.
“Unfortunately, contact with the re-appointed Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Commissioner [Lyudmyla Denisova] has not been established, and the transfer of the convicts has been blocked by Ukraine,” she noted.
Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova said that the topic of a prisoner exchange is constantly brought up at the Minsk talks, and that Ukraine always provides various lists for exchange, “but it leads to nothing”.
The ombudswoman said that she does not know which 44 citizens are concerned. However, she emphasized that Ukraine is prepared to take its own citizens back into its government-controlled territory.
“Let them send us these lists, and we will be ready to take our citizens,” she said.
On September 5, the Russian representatives to the Humanitarian Working Group of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk refused to discuss the possibility of exchanging Ukraine’s Russian prisoners for Russia’s Ukrainian political prisoners.
Earlier, Herashchenko said that for four months, the Kremlin has not responded to offers to hand over convicted Russians.
22 Russian citizens have asked Putin to arrange for them to be exchanged for Ukrainians, but Russia has ignored their requests.