Donetsk, Apr 2 - DAN. The remarks by Head of the Ukrainian President Office Andrey Yermak on Kiev’s fulfilling the “Normandy Four” accords caused bewilderment in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the DPR ombudswoman, Donetsk representative to the Contact Group humanitarian subgroup Darya Morozova said on Thursday.
On March 31, Yermak said during an online press briefing that Kiev, unlike the Donetsk Republics, was doing “everything possible” to fulfil the accords reached at the “Normandy Four” leaders’ summit in December 2019.
“We were very surprised to hear Yermak’s words on the fulfilment of the Minsk agreements. The head of the Ukrainian president Office alleged that “there are issues where we have done our best, but the other party is not so committed to the obligations undertaken,” Morozova said in comments received by the Donetsk News Agency.
She reminded that it was the Donbas Republic representatives who suggested at the previous Contact Group video conference that the parties agree a prisoner exchange date.
“Mr Yermak forgot for some reason that Ukraine had flatly rejected this proposal,” Morozova said. "The first pretext was that they could not prepare ten people for the exchange on short notice. Then the Ukrainian representatives cynically stated that they didn’t want to immediately collect eight people because later on they would get many more.”
In this connection, the DPR named the persons it could have handed over to Ukraine on March 29:
Alexander Alakoz, 29
Nikolay Grinenko, 22
Nikolay Ilyukhin, 61
Vladimir Karas, 52
Yevgeny Kostev, 40
Alexander Pomelyaiko, 34
Alexander Sadovsky, 44
Viktor Shaidov, 50
Earlier reports said that Ukraine had turned down the DPR’s proposal to carry out the “10 for 8” prisoner exchange on March 29.*jk