Ukraine's president calls Medvedchuk Putin's "de facto representative" in Minsk talks
Petro Poroshenko says Viktor Medvedchuk - the leader of the Ukrainskyi Vybir (Ukrainian Choice) NGO actually acted on behalf of President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the Minsk talks on the Donbas settlement.
"Let's say this, we all understand everything: de facto, Medvedchuk is Putin’s representative at these talks," the president of Ukraine Sunday told a Kyiv press conference adding that, at the same time, Medvedchuk was perhaps the only practical channel of communication with the Russian leader on the issue of prisoner exchange, Censor.NET reports citing UNIAN.
The president added that, as far as he knows, Medvedchuk had not participated in the meetings of the Trilateral Group in Minsk since spring of this year.
Asked whether he thinks Putin's personal unwillingness to communicate with him hinders negotiations on hostage release, Poroshenko said, "The fact that we have not been able to free any Ukrainian hostages and political prisoners for over a year... is not because whether the Russian president wants to communicate with Poroshenko or not, but because he just doesn't want to release them."
The president also recalled that after the act of aggression of the Russian Federation in the Kerch Strait, he tried to contact Putin.
"He refused to communicate not because, as he explains, it is connected with the electoral process in Ukraine [and he is not willing to boost Poroshenko's ratings]. He refused, because he has nothing to say," Poroshenko noted.
As reported, the last prisoner swap took place in Donbas on Dec. 27, 2017. That time Ukraine handed over to the Russian-backed militants 233 convicts who had been detained in connection with the war and been serving their sentences in Ukrainian prison in exchange for 73 Ukrainian hostages held by Donbas militants. The released Ukrainian hostages included 32 military and 41 civilians.
