Since August of this year, Russia has started to block the exchange of prisoners of war with Ukraine.
Why does Russia block the exchange of prisoners of war
According to Petro Yatsenko, a representative of the Coordination Staff for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, work is currently underway. Still, the Russians have been blocking this process since August this month.
Negotiations are ongoing, work is ongoing. But, indeed, since the summer, Russia actually froze exchanges. They are not taking place to the same extent as before, Yatsenko emphasized.
He noted that Ukraine is ready for the exchange, but everything depends on the Russians.
Yatsenko noted that Ukraine is running out of places to hold Russian prisoners of war, and currently, there is a need to increase the number of such sites.
We would be happy to exchange them even tomorrow for our defenders. We know that the conditions in which our defenders are in Russia are much worse than those offered by us as a European country that adheres to the third Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, explains the representative of the Coordination Headquarters.
Why is the process of exchanging prisoners delayed?
According to him, the Russian Federation is not interested in the fate of its prisoners, so they are delaying the exchange and creating various obstacles.
In May of this year, we had several large exchanges, the most recent of which took place on August 7. We were able to return only 22 people. There are various reasons for delaying these exchanges, and in fact it is such a hook to slow down the process and to be able to carry out some propaganda campaigns. We believe that this is done precisely for this purpose, Yatsenko said.
