Prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine | It was …

Russia and Ukraine have carried out the first prisoner exchange since the beginning of the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. A total of 70 detainees were released, of which 35 corresponding to each nation. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky saw the exchange as the first step to end the "horrible war" that Kiev is waging against pro-Russian separatist republics in the east of the country. His Russian couple, Vladimir Putin, said the exchange was a big step forward "towards the normalization of bilateral relations" between the two countries. The last big prisoner exchange took place in 2017, but not between the two governments, but between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels.

The process began on July 11 in the first telephone conversation between Putin and Zelensky. "We reached an agreement on the first step of unlocking our dialogue, on the return of our prisoners, on our territories, and we also reached an agreement on the cessation of the war and decided to create groups of work, "said the president. Ukrainian For Zelensky, who came to power in May after serving for several years as a comedian on television, this exchange is an important achievement. Something that his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, has never had because of his bad relations with Putin.

"I congratulate everyone for the release of our heroes," said the president of Kiev's Borispil airport, where he personally received and greeted every "recovered" prisoner. Among other things, the 24 sailors arrested by Russia during the Black Sea naval incident of November 25 left the Ukrainian plane when Russian coastguards fired at the ships and blocked their pbadage through the Strait. from Kerch while they were heading towards the Sea of ​​Azov. The filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, sentenced in 2015 to twenty years imprisonment by Russia, has found him guilty of two terrorist attacks and the preparation of a third on the Crimean peninsula, annexed by the Russia in 2014, finally walked to the Ukrainian soil.

On the Russian side, the reception of released prisoners was very different. Putin did not wait for them at the airport and made no statement. The journalist Kiril Vishinski, director of the Russian state agency, is among the people that Kiev has delivered today in Moscow. RIA Novosti, arrested in 2018 and charged with high treason. According to images broadcast by local Russian media, Vladimir Tsemaj, suspect and main witness of the investigation into the demolition of flight MH17 in July 2014 in eastern Ukraine with 298 people on board, has also been submitted to the exchange.

Putin, who remains silent on the exchange for the moment, said last week that the exchange of prisoners "would be a big step forward in normalizing relations" with Ukraine. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has described the exchange as a "positive signal", which must be followed by "other important measures to break the stalemate in Russian-Ukrainian relations and the implementation of the Minsk agreements ". Finally, the European Union has asked the two countries to continue making progress along this path.