Ukrainian human rights commissioner said Thursday, Jan. 16, that he had discussed with his Russian counterpart the search for residents missing from Russia’s Kursk border region after Ukrainian troops seized territory there last August.
Ukraine has said that around 2,000 civilians remain in territory it controls, while Russia has put the number reported missing at less than 1,000.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
Russian ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova and Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets both posted on social media about the meeting.
Moskalkova said they discussed “the search for missing residents of Kursk region”, calling the talks “a big step towards strengthening trust and realising concrete joint actions”.
Lubinets said he and Moskalkova discussed “the return of civilian citizens held in places of detention” and “agreed to continue the mutual exchange of information regarding the search for missing persons among prisoners of war”.
In November, Ukraine handed 46 Kursk residents to Russia as part of a rare agreement, returning them via Belarus.
Ukraine’s military spokesman for Kursk region, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, on Sunday said that about 2,000 Russian civilians remain in Ukraine-controlled parts of Kursk region.
The Russian governor of the region Alexander Khinshtein this week accused Ukraine of “holding onto Russian citizens”.
He said that police had received reports of 1,174 missing people since August, of whom 240 have been found.
Ukraine Captures North Korean Soldiers Fighting for Russia – What We Know
Moskalkova this month released a list of 517 names of those still missing -- later admitting it was not exhaustive.
Ukraine’s Dmytrashkivsky said this week that the army had located about 800 people sought by their relatives.
Thursday’s meeting between the rights officials was held on Ukraine’s initiative and mainly focused on improving conditions for prisoners of war and returning them home, Lubinets said.
Both sides said it was the first time they held such a meeting also involving the heads of the regional International Red Cross delegations for Ukraine as well as for Russia and Belarus.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
