Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, met with the deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration Dmitry Kozak in Minsk, Ukraine’s president’s office reported on March 1.
Representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian delegations discussed the details of the planned exchange of all prisoners between the countries, which was agreed upon by the countries’ leaders at the Normandy Four summit in Paris in December.
According to Yermak, Ukraine wants to have the exchange in March. It’s not clear from the statement whether the Russian side objects to it.
If the prisoner swap takes place, it may bring home about 200 Ukrainians.
This was the highest-level official meeting between the representatives of Ukraine and Russia since the Normandy Four summit in December.
It was also the first meeting of Yermak and Kozak in their new capacities: On Feb. 11, Yermak was appointed Zelensky’s chief of staff and, synchronously, Kozak was named Russia’s main negotiator with Ukraine.
This will be the third prisoner exchange since Zelensky took office in May. In September, Ukraine and Russia exchanged 35 prisoners each. In December, Ukraine held a mass prisoner exchange with Russia’s proxy authorities in the militant-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine.
On Feb. 15, Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian government was negotiating the return of 200 Ukrainians detained by Russia. Additionally, 184 people are still detained in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, according to the Security Service of Ukraine.
On Dec. 9, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany met in Paris and agreed on a new exchange of prisoners, as well as an end to the shelling in war-torn Donbas and the withdrawal of forces in new areas. They also agreed to hold the next Normandy Four meeting in four months. Ukraine said later it wants to have the next summit in April.
