Фото: t.me/lantratovaDOBRO
A civilian exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place at the Novaya Huta border crossing on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. Seven civilians returned to Ukraine and another seven to Russia, BelTA reported.
Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova said that five residents of Russia’s Kursk region and two residents of other regions had returned home. According to her, the exchange was the result of agreements reached three weeks earlier during her first meeting with Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets. The sides agreed on joint visits to prisoners of war, the exchange of documents and humanitarian missions, as well as the return and reunification of civilian families. Lantratova thanked Russia’s Defence Ministry, relevant agencies, Belarusian representatives, Belarusian House of Representatives member Iryna Kastsevich for helping organise the exchange, and Dmytro Lubinets for “the negotiations and cooperation”.
“It is very important that the first negotiations here, on the territory of Belarus (for which many thanks, of course, to our Belarusian colleagues), took place just three weeks ago, when after I took office, Dmytro Valeriyovych [Lubinets], my counterpart from Ukraine, and I started from scratch and agreed to cooperate.
We agreed not only on joint visits to prisoners of war, the exchange of documents, humanitarian missions and projects to deliver parcels and letters. Most importantly, we agreed to work on returning civilians home and reuniting families. And already at our first meeting, we managed to reunite [people]. These were three families. Three other families returned to the territory of Ukraine,” she said.
As reported by Dmytro Lubinets, his meeting with Lantratova took place during yesterday’s prisoner-of-war exchange. The sides agreed to continue mutual visits to prisoners of war and to verify information on Ukrainians held in Russian captivity. They also exchanged extensive lists of military personnel from both sides who had gone missing under special circumstances to verify whether they were being held in captivity, as well as requests for copies of documents within the framework of civil legal matters.
“We also agreed to continue this work in the future. I emphasise: for me, the main thing is achieving results that will help our citizens: those who are in captivity. Those who are missing. Their families,” he wrote.
The previous day, Ukraine and Russia also exchanged prisoners of war in a 160-for-160 swap.