KIEV, Aug 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ukraine on Friday (Aug 30) denied reports that a prisoner swap with Russia was underway, as announced earlier by some Russian media and a Ukrainian official.
“The process for the mutual release of prisoners is continuing. Information about its completion is not true,” the Ukrainian presidency said in a post on Facebook.
Speculation has spread in recent days that a prisoner swap was imminent and reports surfaced overnight that it had begun.
Some reports were based on a repost on Facebook by Ukraine’s new prosecutor-general Ruslan Ryaboshapka suggesting the swap had started. Russian media outlets retracted a report of the swap and apologised.
“This is not the first time we have seen information chaos caused by … unconfirmed information,” the presidency said, warning against “misinformation” and urging people not to “play with society’s emotions”.
“Nobody is flying anywhere,” Valentyn Rybin, a lawyer for several of the Russian and Ukrainian nationals held by Ukraine and mooted for the swap. Some of his clients are still in prison, he said.
“Let’s be patient and not have any false starts,” he said in a video posted on his Facebook page.
On Friday influential Ukrainian lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a former prisoner swap negotiator, visited two Ukrainians who are being held in a Moscow prison.
“This issue (of the swap) has moved forward a long way, and therefore it gives confidence that this exchange will happen in the near future,” he told Ukrainian television.
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said talks were confidential but “I can confirm certain progress,” Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – whose election earlier this year has raised hopes of a reduction in tensions with Russia – proposed an exchange of Sentsov and Vyshynsky a few weeks ago.
Some 13,000 people have been killed in Ukraine’s conflict with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, which broke out shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.
A prisoner exchange could be a key first step in easing tensions between Kiev and Moscow. — NNN-AGENCIES
