Russia has provisionally agreed to cooperate on the release of military personnel who have been held captive for over three years.
This was stated by Yurii Kovbasa, representative of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights in the security and defense sector, after a meeting between the negotiating teams of Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul, according to a Ukrinform correspondent.
“Regarding prisoners of war, we agreed to maintain the same level of cooperation as before and draw the Russian side’s attention to prisoners who have been in captivity for over three years. The Russian side has agreed to work on returning these people,” Kovbasa said.
According to him, this primarily concerns young military personnel, as well as the wounded and seriously ill.
“Separately, both sides discussed and agreed on the possibility of regular sanitary exchanges of prisoners of war who are in poor health,” said a member of the Ukrainian delegation.
It was reported that a meeting between the negotiating teams of Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul on July 23.
This is the third round of negotiations, with the previous ones taking place in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2.
As a result of the first round of negotiations, an agreement was reached, in particular, on the exchange of prisoners in a “1000 for 1000” format.
During the second round of negotiations, an agreement was reached to exchange prisoners of war in two categories: the wounded and the seriously wounded, as well as soldiers under the age of 25, in an “all for all” format. Additionally, the exchange of deceased soldiers’ bodies was agreed upon.
Source: Ukraine and Russia agree on regular exchanges of seriously ill captives
