Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova has conducted her first meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Lubinets, which was held on the Belarus-Ukraine border, reported Tass. The two agreed to expand cooperation between the two nations for humanitarian assistance; this is especially important since diplomatic relations were broken on February 24, 2022, by Ukraine when Russia began its special military operations.
Lantratova told reporters, “We discussed ways not only to preserve the best practices that have already been developed between the commissioners but also to further develop them,” noting that they agreed to exchange lists of people that each side is willing to receive and to hand over. They also agreed to continue joint visits to prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine, as well as efforts to deliver letters and packages from families to POWs.
“’We also reached agreement in another area: if a soldier is killed on one side but his parents live in the other country, we decided to establish a channel of communication to make sure they don’t come up against bureaucratic red tape with paperwork, payments, and benefits,’ said Lantratova, and noted that the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets “expressed his readiness to help in this process,” concluded Tass.
