Jason Melanovski
Amidst the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine between Kiev and Russian-backed separatists, which, since 2014, has claimed over 13,000 lives, Russia and Ukraine carried out a high-profile prisoner exchange this past Saturday, each swapping 35 captives.
The freed Ukrainians included 24 sailors who were captured by Russian forces in the Kerch Strait during a naval provocation stoked by the previous president Petro Poroshenko last November.
Among those released by Russia are also the film director Oleg Sentsov, journalist Roman Sushchenko, Crimean Tatar activist Edem Bekirov, and others who had run afoul of Moscow and were considered allies of Kiev in the five-year-long war in eastern Ukraine.
In exchange, Ukraine released 35 prisoners, including Volodymyr Tsemakh, a separatist leader who has been labeled a “person of interest” in the phony investigation into the 2015 MH-17 downing, carried out by the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team. His release was explicitly protested by the Netherlands, and Tsemakh was questioned by Dutch investigators prior to his release.
While the western imperialist media such as CNN consistently referred to the 35 individuals released by Kiev as “Russian prisoners,” only 12 are Russian citizens and the rest are Ukrainians, including Tsemakh.
Most were imprisoned on charges of “terrorism” or colluding with Moscow and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Among them was journalist Kirill Vyshinsky, who was accused of publishing “anti- Ukrainian” articles and imprisoned on charges of “high treason and illegal possession of weapons” in May 2018.
The exchange of prisoners was celebrated by Ukrainian media but was met with a remarkably muted response in the Russian press and television. Recent statements by Ukrainian officials suggest that more prisoners could be exchanged in upcoming weeks.
The exchange of prisoners between Moscow and Kiev occurred just a week after President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first 100 days in office. The electoral victory of Zelensky in April this year represented a major rebuke of the former president Petro Poroshenko who had come to power in the wake of the US- and EU-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014, which had been spearheaded by far-right forces. In running against Poroshenko, Zelensky had played on popular anti-war sentiments, promising to enter negotiations with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
However, during his first weeks in office, Zelensky continued the anti-Russia campaign of his predecessor. In his interactions with western imperialist allies Zelensky opposed Russia’s return to the Council of Europe and attempted to drum up support among France and Germany for increased sanctions and a more aggressive united stance with little to no avail.
The recent shift in Zelensky’s foreign policy comes amid growing conflicts between the leading imperialist powers of the EU, France and Germany, on the one hand, and the US on the other. In recent months, there have been growing tensions between Berlin, Paris and Washington particularly over the conflict with Iran and the escalation of US sanctions.
The prisoner exchange was strongly backed by France and Germany with media reports suggesting that French President Emmanuel Macron, in particular, played a central role in it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had met with Zelensky earlier this summer, called the prisoner exchange a “hopeful sign.” The French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian welcomed the exchange as a sign of a “new atmosphere.” He stated that “It’s not yet the time to lift sanctions” but that a “window of opportunity, an opening for calming down the situation” had opened up.
According to a report by UNIAN, in a telephone conversation between the French president and Zelensky that took place just a week prior to the prisoner exchange, Macron had “reminded the President of Ukraine…of the need to make progress on security issues and implement political measures to resolve the situation in Donbas.”
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