MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th February, 2019) Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the opposition Ukrainian Choice - Right of People public movement, who is also Kiev's representative in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group for the Donbas settlement, suggested that an exchange of detainees between the sides to the Donbas conflict could have been held within two to three days given Kiev had political will for it.
"If the Ukrainian side expressed its political will and told me about such an exchange today, I can assure you that it might be held not by March 31 [the planned date of Ukraine's presidential election], but within two to three days. But the Ukrainian side has no political will to exchange 'all those detained for all those detained'," Medvedchuk told Russia's Channel One.
The politician insisted that he had been regularly raising the swap issue. Such an exchange of "all those identified for all those identified" assumes swapping 156 people held by Ukraine for 52 people held by the Donbas breakaway republics, according to Medvedchuk.
The previous major detainee swap between Kiev and Donbas forces was held in December 2017.
Last December, the representative of the People's Republic of Donetsk (LPR) in the Trilateral Contact Group said that the group had failed to agree on holding another swap between the LPR and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) on the one side and the Kiev authorities on the other side due to Ukraine's destructive position on the issue.
Medvedchuk also suggested that Washington used Ukraine as a platform for its confrontation with Russia.
The politician maintained that Ukraine would benefit from Washington and Moscow founding a common ground on the settlement of various crises, including the conflict in Donbas.
"But the Kiev authorities do not need this. And apparently, the US administration, which currently sits in the White House, does not need it," Medvedchuk suggested.
Medvedchuk is in the center of a criminal probe launched by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office over suspected state treason and infringement on the country's territorial integrity. According to the prosecutors, the probe was launched in connection with Medvedchuk's proposal to create an autonomous region of Donbas within Ukraine.
Medvedchuk's peace plan on the Donbas settlement envisages creating the autonomous region and establishing authorities, including the government and the parliament, in Ukraine's southeast. According to the politician, the plan is based on the Minsk agreements on the Donbas conflict settlement and the declarations of the Normandy Four group. Moreover, it requires changing the Ukrainian constitution.
Reacting to the launch of the criminal probe against Medvedchuk, the Kremlin has said that information about the initiation or the possibility of such a criminal case was very alarming.
On Wednesday, Medvedchuk said Ukrainian authorities would not be able to frighten him or make him leave Ukraine despite threats he had received for several years.
"Despite all these threats, despite the criminal prosecution, we will do everything possible to implement this peace plan," Medvedchuk pointed out.
The opposition figure argued that the criminal investigation against him had been initiated by the People's Front party, led by the former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Medvedchuk suggested that the party received instructions from Washington and insisted that the probe was a reaction to his Donbas peace plan.
