Ukraine wants to bring back 1,000 people from Russian captivity – Zelenskyy

Ukraine wants to bring home 1,000 people from Russian captivity, and work on the lists is underway, President Zelenskyy said.

“On exchanges, Rustem [Umerov] spoke with [Vladimir] Medinsky – they are in contact. We want to bring back 1,000 people; work on the lists is underway,” Zelenskyy told journalists on Friday.

At the same time, the president noted that the Ukrainian delegation could meet with the Russian side “even tomorrow” if “we just want to talk,” but results are needed.

“We have read all their memoranda; we know them well. And they’ve read ours – they’ve studied them very carefully. They know what they want, and we know what we want. We can just meet with them without any forward movement – and such empty meetings suit them, but they do not bring peace any closer,” Zelenskyy explained.

According to him, the Russians once again lied, since after the meeting there was supposed to be an agreement on an exchange, as well as on “what format the leaders should meet in to try to agree on ending the war, on one stage or another.” But after the meeting, there was only an agreement on the exchange.

“They came back and said: ‘Let’s do the exchange, the civilians… after the civilians there will be a call with Rustem, we’ll discuss further.’ They had that call. Now they say: ‘We probably need to do something else – technical meetings.’ So they are dragging everything out. We will talk with President Trump, and today he will be talking with China. I think everyone will gradually work to make a leaders’ meeting happen,” the president said.