There has been progress regarding Red Cross’s access to prisoners, - Lubinets
Negotiations on the exchange of prisoners of war continue without interruption. In February, the leadership of the International Committee of the Red Cross is expected to visit Kyiv, during which it is planned to discuss new approaches to ensuring ICRC access to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians illegally detained in Russia.
According to Censor.NET, citing Ukrinform, this was stated by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets.
"There is progress," he said, responding to a question about the ICRC's access to Ukrainian prisoners in Russia.
Visit by ICRC leadership
According to the ombudsman, he raised the issue of intensifying the work of the ICRC on January 16 during a meeting with the president of the Committee and officially invited the organization's leadership to visit Ukraine.
"The executive director of the ICRC will be coming. He is effectively the second-in-command at the International Committee and will be working in Ukraine for several days. We will have a separate meeting and separate talks. We will see what new approaches they bring to Ukraine," said Lubinets.
Prisoner exchanges continue
The Ombudsman also stressed that the Ukrainian side had not paused in its work on the exchange of prisoners of war.
"There have never been any pauses in the exchange of prisoners of war on the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainian team is working daily to return heroes and heroines from Russian captivity," he said.
Lubinets emphasized that negotiations are only one stage of a complex exchange procedure, and the actual return of people is its final result. According to him, the negotiation process is ongoing, but the Russian side sometimes delays decision-making.
