Putin: Russia is ready for the third round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine

According to Russian media reports, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the 27th that after the implementation of the agreement reached with Ukraine in Istanbul, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine will hold the third round of negotiations, and Russia is ready for this.

Putin attended the meeting of the Supreme Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission in Minsk, Belarus on the same day. He said at a press conference held after the meeting that the heads of the Russian and Ukrainian negotiation teams maintained close contact and called each other. The theme of the next round of negotiations will be the discussion of the draft memorandum on the two countries’ conflict resolution plan.

Putin said that the exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine is of great significance and has created conditions for the two sides to have substantive discussions on the nature of the problem. He said that Russia has handed over the remains of 6,000 soldiers to Ukraine and is preparing to hand over the remains of another 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

The Russian and Ukrainian delegations held the second round of direct negotiations in Istanbul on the 2nd of this month. The two sides agreed to exchange all seriously injured and seriously ill prisoners of war on the principle of “all for all”, and to exchange the remains of prisoners of war under the age of 25 and fallen soldiers on a large scale. According to the prisoner exchange agreement reached in this round of negotiations, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange at least 1,000 prisoners of war each, and Russia will hand over 6,000 bodies of Ukrainian troops to Ukraine.