Russia delays prisoner of war exchanges as much as possible - Lubinets
Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said that the Russian side was delaying the exchange process as much as possible.
According to Censor.NET, with reference to Ukrinform, the Ukrainian ombudsman said this during a working visit to Bukovyna.
"The Russians are delaying the exchange processes as much as possible. I want everyone to clearly understand that agreements are not easy to reach. You can see on the battlefield how the Russians attacked us insidiously, and this is how they conduct their negotiations. We had a period when exchange processes were on hold. In my opinion, this was done on purpose by the Russian side. It was their new approach, when they tried to involve relatives of prisoners of war in destabilizing the socio-economic and political situation in Ukraine," Lubinets said.
He said that, in addition to completely stopping the exchange of prisoners of war, the Russians began to massively appeal to the relatives of Ukrainian soldiers.
"They introduced themselves as Russian authorized representatives who allegedly want to return Ukrainian soldiers, but Ukraine refuses to take them back. Therefore, they encouraged Ukrainians to come out to protest, block roads, block the activities of administrative buildings, demanding that the Ukrainian authorities return their relatives. We saw their new approach to destabilizing Ukraine. As of now, we have already conducted three exchanges this year, and I hope that there will be more in the near future. At least we are working on it," he added.
According to Lubinets, he has a positive attitude to the organization of various activities by groups of relatives of Ukrainian military. In particular, he believes it is worth holding rallies in front of the International Committee of the Red Cross. After all, this is the only international organization with a unique mandate to protect the rights of prisoners of war.
"What shouldn't relatives do? Do not name specific names. There is no need to launch flash mobs against specific individuals. As soon as this is done, as soon as one person becomes too famous, we see that the Russians do track it. And then they demand completely different conditions for the release of such a person. Therefore, this should not be done," the Ukrainian ombudsman said.
