Prisoner exchange, local elections will be key topics at Normandy talks, Zelensky says

Ukrainian President Zelensky said on Nov. 19 that the
exchange of war prisoners will be a key topic for discussion at the Normandy
Format summit to resolve the armed conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region. “We
want to return all our people home – to their families, to their parents. I
also want to speak about when. If everyone, then when? For me, the answer to
the question ‘When?’ is concrete terms. I want to understand the answer to that
question as well,” Zelensky told a press briefing, as reported by the
Interfax-Ukraine news agency. Other topics for discussion are the holding of
local elections “after the removal of all illegal military formations,” as well
as security and humanitarian issues, he said. “What will be discussed, in what
manner, dry or not dry, doesn’t matter, it seems to me. What’s important are
concrete things,” he said.

A summary document for the Normandy Format summit is
being prepared, but it has yet to be decided whether it will be declarative or
obligatory, said on Nov. 19 Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian
Presidential Administration. “It can be expected that some document will be
agreed upon. It’s early to say what kind of document it will be and whether it
will be signed. So far there haven’t been any joint decisions on this matter,”
he said, as reported by the unian.net news site. Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign
Ministry announced in a Nov. 18 statement that it returned the three Ukrainian
navy ships that were confiscated during the November conflict in the Kerch
Strait. The ships are material evidence in an ongoing criminal trial on their
illegal crossing of Russia’s border, the statement said, but they could be
returned because pretrial investigations involving them have concluded. The
Ukrainian government, with the backing of Western governments, has pointed out
that its ships had – and continue to have – the legal right to cross the Kerch
Strait, which is international waters.

In preparation for the Normandy Format summit, a new
law on the special status of Donbas needs to be drafted and approved by
Ukraine’s parliament, said Vadym Prystaiko, the Ukrainian foreign minister, in
an interview published on Nov. 18 on the rbc.ua news site. In addition, the law
has to be approved by the leaders of the occupied territories of the Donetsk
and Luhansk regions at a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk. The
law should further specify borders, the conditions for amnesty and other points
where progress can be achieved, he said. The law on Donbas special status has
been renewed annually by parliament since 2014 in the same form, more or less.
In October, President Zelensky called for drafting a new law.

The heads of state of France, Germany, Russia and
Ukraine will meet on Dec. 9 in Paris as part of the Normandy Format summit, the
first such meeting in three years.