Savchenko claims agreement on hostage exchange with Donbas fighters

Ukrainian MP Nadiya Savchenko told the hromadske.ua news site on Dec. 14 that she has reached an agreement with the leaders of the Russian-backed forces in Donetsk and Luhansk to exchange hostages at a ratio of 4 pro-Russian fighters for every Ukrainian soldier. In all, the Ukrainians would offer 226 fighters in exchange for 52 of their captive soldiers, or what she alleged was the total number of hostages confirmed to be alive. She couldn’t say how this could occur or by what timeframe. She said she conducted the talks, without the Ukrainian government’s permission, in order to bring the Minsk peace talks out of a dead end. Savchenko met with the leaders of the breakaway republics in Minsk on Dec. 7, at the same time that official peace talks were being held.

Zenon Zawada: Savchenko’s “breakthrough” in the talks was orchestrated by the Kremlin as part of its ongoing PR campaign in order to discredit the Ukrainian government, particularly in the eyes of the Western public. Naturally, the Ukrainian negotiators will reject any agreement reached by Savchenko, which indeed resembled their proposals for hostage exchange, with one exception. The Ukrainian government won’t allow granting amnesty to be a condition for the hostage exchange, which is what they are seeking. Yet most Westerners don’t understand such nuances and the rejection of a hostage exchange will make it appear that Ukraine is resisting peace attempts.