There is no progress at the negotiations in Minsk on the issue of the release of hostages, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, representative of Ukraine in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Iryna Herashchenko, has said.
“The key topic of the humanitarian group, where representatives of the SBU and the Ministry for IDPs (Internally displaced people), occupied territories were working today, is the release of hostages. There is no progress. Moscow does not recognize its Russians in Ukrainian prisons. ORDLO (Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts) takes a destructive position,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
According to Herashchenko, the Ukrainian side once again raised the issue of adolescents illegally detained by Russia-backed separatists in the occupied Donetsk in January 2016. “Representatives of the ORDO promised the OSCE to release children … until December 2016. However, they gave them prison terms … for espionage. We expect the OSCE to take a tougher position regarding children and teenagers,” she said.
