Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is convinced that Ukrainian prisoners held both in Russia and in Donbas and Crimea will be swapped based on the all-for-all principle in time, but that the lists of these prisoners should first be verified; in the meantime, the parties could start exchanging those whose presence has been confirmed, including the Ukrainian sailors held in Russia.
“The president of the Russian Federation told me that he saw an all-for-all solution for the issue of prisoners. I told him openly that I would be happy to exchange all for all, but there is one problem. Our list of all of our guys who are held in the temporarily occupied territories doesn’t coincide with the list of the people who are controlling our temporarily occupied territories now,” Zelensky said in an interview shown by a number of Ukrainian TV channels on Wednesday.
“Therefore, we will certainly do all for all, but let’s first return all those who are in Russia and who are in Crimea, and let’s start with the sailors. It seems to me this is a good step to resume dialogue and a really strong step toward ending the war,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin had their first telephone conversation on July 11.
