Russia calls on Ukraine to speed up prisoner of war exchange processes

MADRID Nov. 2 () –

The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed this Saturday its dissatisfaction with the pace of prisoner of war exchange procedures with Ukraine and demanded that the kyiv authorities accelerate the protocols for next year.

Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova regretted that Russia offered to hand over 935 Ukrainian prisoners last year but only released 279. “Almost 700 people have been left without returning to their families in Ukraine,” Zakharova previously stated. of accusing Ukrainian authorities of “disdaining” prisoners held by Russia.

In this sense, Zakharova has repudiated the international tours of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, which she has described as “political tourism on the blood of its own citizens and its military personnel,” reports the Russian news agency TASS.

Ukraine has not commented on these statements. In the middle of last month, the head of the Ukrainian Parliament for Human Rights, Dimitro Lubinets, put the number of prisoner exchanges with Russia at 58 since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022, and raised the total number of prisoners to 3,767. They returned home.