Ukraine and Russia Move Towards Road Of Peace WithPrisoner Swap Before New Year
Showing solidarity towards peacebuilding, Russia and Ukraine exchanged a huge load of prisoners since the five-year conflict started between the two nations.
Last week, Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east completed a large-scale prisoner swap. As many as 200 prisoners have been reportedly swapped. Issuing a public statement in social media, the Ukrainian presidential office said “The mutual release of the detainees has ended,” specifying that Kyiv received 76 captives. Separatist officials said the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk received 124.
While Germany and France have commented that the move is a positive one, the exchange has provoked outrage in government-held Ukraine. According to the government officials, Kyiv seems to have handed over to separatists five riot police suspected of killing protesters during a pro-western uprising in 2014 as part of the swap.
The swap is effectively the first step to de-escalating the only active war ongoing in Europe. The exchange came after Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met face-to-face for the first time in Paris in the first week of December. Zelenskiy has been the larger person thanking the ‘Normandy Four’ group - Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany that have been instrumental in making this first move that has helped curb the loss of any more civilian lives. Since the start, both sides have lost more than 13000 lives.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia saw a collapse following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and its subsequent support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. There have been several prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and the separatists. In the last swap, in December 2017, Ukraine handed over about 300 captives in exchange for around 70 people.
In September, Russia and Ukraine also swapped dozens of prisoners.
Relations between the two countries have shown signs of improvement in other areas too, including in the gas sector, where Kyiv and Moscow are discussing a new transit contract.
With Ukraine coming closer to end war-like conditions with Russia, it might be possible that Moscow could turn the smaller nation to favor its own agenda later. It is worth noting that Washington has already tried to arm-twist Ukraine to suit ulterior motives but failed.
Russia has helped Washington in the 2016 Election promotion for which FBI has been accused of mishandling crucial information, something that has not been able to implicated Trump to the fullest over tampering of election results
Last week, Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east completed a large-scale prisoner swap. As many as 200 prisoners have been reportedly swapped. Issuing a public statement in social media, the Ukrainian presidential office said “The mutual release of the detainees has ended,” specifying that Kyiv received 76 captives. Separatist officials said the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk received 124.
While Germany and France have commented that the move is a positive one, the exchange has provoked outrage in government-held Ukraine. According to the government officials, Kyiv seems to have handed over to separatists five riot police suspected of killing protesters during a pro-western uprising in 2014 as part of the swap.
The swap is effectively the first step to de-escalating the only active war ongoing in Europe. The exchange came after Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met face-to-face for the first time in Paris in the first week of December. Zelenskiy has been the larger person thanking the ‘Normandy Four’ group - Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany that have been instrumental in making this first move that has helped curb the loss of any more civilian lives. Since the start, both sides have lost more than 13000 lives.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia saw a collapse following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and its subsequent support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. There have been several prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and the separatists. In the last swap, in December 2017, Ukraine handed over about 300 captives in exchange for around 70 people.
In September, Russia and Ukraine also swapped dozens of prisoners.
Relations between the two countries have shown signs of improvement in other areas too, including in the gas sector, where Kyiv and Moscow are discussing a new transit contract.
With Ukraine coming closer to end war-like conditions with Russia, it might be possible that Moscow could turn the smaller nation to favor its own agenda later. It is worth noting that Washington has already tried to arm-twist Ukraine to suit ulterior motives but failed.
Russia has helped Washington in the 2016 Election promotion for which FBI has been accused of mishandling crucial information, something that has not been able to implicated Trump to the fullest over tampering of election results
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