Ukraine ready for compromise on exchange of hostages - SBU

The head of the SBU's joint center for coordinating the search and release of illegally held persons, hostages and identifying the location of those missing in the area of the anti-terrorist operation, Yuriy Kachanov, said this at a press conference at Ukrinform on Thursday.

"Ukraine has provided the lists and is ready for a broad compromise. Now we want to pick up the confirmed 87 [hostages] who stay in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and are ready to give or not to give, but to consider 309 people who can be moved with their consent to the uncontrolled territory," he said, adding that he is a representative of the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group, which works in Minsk.

At present, he said, "representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk are categorically against small narrow exchanges: all for all."

As Ukrinform reported, Ukraine's representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group, Iryna Herashchenko, stated earlier that the Ukrainian side, in the presence of OSCE representatives, had confirmed its readiness to exchange 309 militants for 87 Ukrainians and expected a response to the proposal on the immediate release of hostages.

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