A serviceman offers the Ukrainian flag to the daughter of Yuriy Huk, a Ukrainian serviceman, killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at his funeral service at the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on 16 May, 2022. Photo: Yuriy Dyachyshyn / AFP
Moscow insists Ukrainian fighters to stand trial before possible swap
Russia’s minister Andrei Rudenko said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap with Kyiv after the surrendered Ukrainian fighters stand trial
A serviceman offers the Ukrainian flag to the daughter of Yuriy Huk, a Ukrainian serviceman, killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at his funeral service at the Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church, in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on 16 May, 2022. Photo: Yuriy Dyachyshyn / AFP
Moscow said Wednesday it would be “premature” to consider a prisoner swap with Kyiv before Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to Russian troops stand trial.
Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said Moscow would consider a prisoner swap with Kyiv after the surrendered Ukrainian fighters “are appropriately convicted, sentenced”.
“Before that, all talk of an exchange is premature,”
Rudenko told reporters as quoted by Russian news agencies.
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HUNDREDS OF UKRAINIAN FIGHTERS
Last week, hundreds of Ukrainian defenders of the strategic port city of Mariupol in the country’s southeast surrendered after holding out at the city’s Azovstal steelworks for weeks.
Among the Ukrainian fighters who gave themselves up were members of the Azov regiment, a former paramilitary unit which has integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces.
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NEO-NAZI ORGANISATION
Russia describes the unit, which has had previous links to far-right groups, as a neo-Nazi organisation.
On Monday, a Kyiv court found Russian serviceman Vadim Shishimarin guilty of war crimes for killing an unarmed civilian and sentenced him to life in prison.
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© Agence France-Presse
