The Ombudsman also handed over letters for Ukrainian prisoners of war from their relatives.
Russian human rights ombudsman Tatiana Moskaľkova and her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets met in Belarus on Friday, where they discussed prisoners of war. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
Ombudsmen also said on social media that they had secured the transfer of a 91-year-old woman from Ukraine to Russia. “We exchanged lists of prisoners of war,” Lubinec wrote on the X network, adding that he also handed over letters for Ukrainian prisoners of war from their relatives.
The last joint meeting of both ombudsmen was held in 2023 in Turkey. Friday’s meeting took place in Belarus, which is a close ally of Russia and a supporter of its invasion of Ukraine.
Both ombudsmen announced that their work is supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
A unique collaboration
Humanitarian issues such as the exchange of prisoners or bodies of war dead remains one of the few areas of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia since the February 2022 invasion began.
Lubinec last week called on Russia to provide a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war ready for exchange. She did so in response to the statement of the spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, who declared that Ukraine is essentially sabotaging the process of exchanging prisoners of war between the two countries and refuses to accept back its own citizens.
Ukraine and Russia have already exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Exchanges often helped mediate other countries. The last exchange took place in October, with each side bringing home 95 prisoners.
The Ukrainian Coordination Command for the Treatment of Prisoners of War announced on Friday that Russian officials had returned the bodies of 563 soldiers to Ukraine. Most of these soldiers died fighting in the Donetsk region in the east of the country.
