KYIV. March 15 (Interfax) - Kyiv is ready to exchange over 20 convicted Russian citizens who were detained in Donbas for Ukrainian citizens imprisoned in Russia, Iryna Herashchenko, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine (TCG), said.
"Regarding the issue of the hostage release, the Ukrainian side once again reminded the Russian participants of the group that more than 20 Russians were detained and convicted in Donbas. We are ready to hand them over to the Russian Federation in exchange for the release of prisoners of the Kremlin held in Russian prisons, and we call for the intensification of this process," Herashchenko wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday following a meeting of the TCG in Minsk on Wednesday.
Ukraine is also ready for sensible compromises for the liberation of its military and civilians from prisons in the "occupied territories," she wrote.
"Unfortunately, despite all our efforts to speed up the current wave of releases, there has been no progress on this matter so far," Herashchenko wrote.