Militants demand to transfer freeside criminals, who do not want to ‘DPR’ – SBU Chairman Advisor Tandyt

The list of people, whom the militants demand to exchange for Ukrainian captives, there are many those, who have no relation to the ATO or even cannot be identified by Ukrainian special services.

Advisor to the Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Yuri Tandyt said this in the interview with the Radio Liberty.

He recalled that last year separatists had submitted the list for transfer of captives, which had contained 1,102 people.

“Out of this number, we found that, for example, that about 300 people were absolutely unknown for us and had not been in our data base… More than 100 people were released from prison, and walk free now. And they do not want to move there. There were about 40 people who had no relation to the ATO, but had been imprisoned in Ukraine. For example, there was an ‘old gangster’ who served sentence in prison [of 11 years] in one of the regional centers in western Ukraine … Or, for example, there was someone who deliberately failed to pay child support,” Tandyt said.

In addition, he said, there are still more than 20 people with nicknames and odd names, so Ukrainian security services simply cannot identify them.

“There are people who have never come to the attention of Ukrainian special services or security forces. And they do not even know that someone wants to exchange them for captives,” he added.

In addition, Tandyt said that the Ukrainian side was ready to negotiate and make concessions in order to release the Ukrainian military prisoners.

As reported, according to Security Service of Ukraine, 107 Ukrainians are in the militant captivity: 64 people are servicemen and the others are civilians.

In its turn, the separatists claim that the Ukrainian side holds in captivity more than 600 militants and so they demand their release.