During the meeting of the humanitarian subgroup in Minsk on 04.04.2018, it was impossible to come to agreement on the main issues on the agenda. The exchange of detainees issue has not been discussed properly, since the Kiev delegates officially stated that the Ukrainian leadership had had no agreed position on this issue.
Again, the stance of the Ukrainian side regarding the procedural status of persons released from Ukrainian captivity on 27.12.17 was not provided either in writing or orally. In my opinion, they delay it intentionally, because those documents would clearly show us that the released persons have not been cleared of charges at the time of the exchange, as well as until now. Consequently, procedural clearing, which was one of the conditions for the exchange, has not been carried out. In addition, those people have not received their identity documents back. Kiev ignores this issue.
The search for missing persons was another issue of the agenda. The stance of the Ukrainian side has not been supported by any official document. Moreover, too little time was devoted to the issue of missing persons in Minsk meeting. The discussion of the issue took less than 2 minutes. The demand of the Ukrainian side was to involve experts from third countries that are not parties to the conflict. Let me remind you that the draft roadmap, developed in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, was blocked more than a year ago due to unreasonable demands of the Ukrainian side.
I consider it extremely unacceptable to delay the resolution of the issue of searching for missing persons. On both sides of the contact line, there are families whose relatives went missing. It is inhuman and cynical to block the discussion of this topic. I hope that at the future meetings the Ukrainian delegates will be able to arrive at a coordinated position, which would channel the discussion into a constructive process.
