Today, Donetsk and Lugansk agreed to release four Ukrainian POWs. It's Viktor Medvedchuk who managed to persuade the leaders of the People's Republics. The head of the political council of For Life — Oppositional Platform, who has been responsible for the exchanges since the conflict started, has to use his own connections, while Kiev doesn't make any steps. All the more so that now Ukrainian President Zelensky is sending odd signals. He confessed that the information about his own international moves gets through to him only on the internet.
Evgeniy Reshetnyov is reporting from the Belarusian capital.
The negotiations, as it turns out, have lasted for several months. We only witnessed their final part when Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk met directly with the heads of the DPR and LPR and something happened there that we can certainly call a breakthrough: it's been a year and a half since the last POW exchange between the conflict's sides. Now, the authorities of the unrecognized republics are delivering four prisoners to Kiev on a unilateral basis as a gesture of goodwill. Three of the POWs to be released are Ukrainian servicemen sentenced according to particularly serious articles such as terrorism, soliciting terrorist attacks, and using forbidden warfare. While Kiev is refusing to establish contact with the unrecognized republics, it's being done by Viktor Medvedchuk by using his own connections.
Viktor Medvedchuk: "Mr. Zelensky's team, unfortunately, is not going to lead direct negotiations with representatives from Donetsk and Lugansk, which was stated by Mr. Zelensky himself, and was confirmed by his team. He doesn't support special status for Donbass. He doesn't support amnesty. And, naturally, he hasn't done anything to release everyone in the framework of exchanging all of the established POWs".
Despite all of his election promises, Zelensky is acting in the same way as Poroshenko, who, over a year and a half, deliberately rejected an exchange in an "all for all" format. It must have happened back in the winter of 2018. Due to this, hundreds of people are still being detained in prisons on both sides. Today, Donetsk and Lugansk are sending a signal that they are ready to start the peace process.
Leonid Pasechnik, head of the LPR: "The most important task today for Mr. Pushilin and me is making this move to stimulate the Ukrainian authorities so that they eventually agree to exchange all for all".
As soon as the negotiations' results became public, Zelensky summoned a briefing in Kiev. Yet, his first reaction to the news from Minsk turned out to be quite odd.
Vladimir Zelensky: "I don't understand why our great, independent Ukraine needs mediators".
Unlike Zelensky, who, similarly to his predecessor, is against any direct negotiations with the unrecognized republics, Donetsk and Lugansk supported Medvedchuk's initiative. He's been organizing the release of POWs since 2014.
Denis Pushilin, Head of the DPR: "I saw that each time when he started the exchange process, the situation gained traction and a concrete result was achieved. All of the exchanges, especially big ones, happened with Viktor Medvedchuk's direct involvement that's why we now, after discussing it with Leonid Ivanovich, came to the conclusion that we need to meet them halfway".
Medvedchuk doesn't know what awaits him upon his arrival in Kiev and doesn't exclude the possibility of political or criminal prosecution. Meanwhile, according to surveys in Ukraine, 54% of Ukrainians are for direct negotiations with the unrecognized republics if it helps gain peace.
Viktor Medvedchuk: "This is what our party, the For Life Opposition Platform, stands for. This is the position of the team within our party that actually fights for peace and believes that it knows how to bring peace to the country".
At the moment, Kiev lacks the political will to fulfill one of the first terms of Minsk: the separation of forces. There's something suspicious happening at one of the tensest points, Luganskaya. The rebel forces started withdrawing their divisions, which was confirmed by OSCE observers, while Kiev, according to the LPR's authorities, is only imitating a withdrawal of forces. And the creation of the safe zone here, which has been disrupted 80 times, could be disrupted for the 81st time.
Meanwhile, Ukraine will have a new parliament in less than a month. Whether there will be forces that are capable and, most importantly, willing to establish peace in Donbass is a big question.
Evgeniy Reshetnyov, Alexander Alexandronets, Margarita Kurilova, Oleg Peletskiy, and Konstantin Veselov, Vesti from Minsk, Belarus.
