Prystaiko: Our task is to return as many captives as possible
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The Ukrainian government and the Foreign Ministry have set the task to return as many prisoners as possible before the New Year.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said this in an interview with Ukrinform.

"We want to return the maximum number of people to their families before the New Year," the minister said.

When commenting on the fact that the Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the armed conflict in Donbas at its meeting in Minsk on December 18 failed to agree on the all-for-all prisoner exchange formula, the minister said that the Ukrainian side “counted on a bit more progress in this issue.”

At the same time, Prystaiko noted that one group of captives had been already approved but "the question arises: exchange them right now or try to continue working on the lists and return everyone."

In total, the Trilateral Contact Group in Paris on December 9 had to consider seven tasks so that to implement them before the next summit, scheduled for April 2020.

Apart from prisoner swap lists, the TCG humanitarian group was supposed to agree on the access of representatives of the Red Cross to uncontrolled territories and decide on the next three sites where the withdrawal of forces should take place before the summit.