Minsk hopes Savchenko's release to positively impact Ukraine Contact Group talks
MINSK. May 26 (Interfax) - Belarus said it hoped that the return of Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, pardoned in Russia, to her home country will positively influence the negotiating process within the Trilateral Contact Group for settling the conflict in south-eastern Ukraine.
"We hope that this event will positively impact the negotiating process [within the Contact Group]," Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmitry Mironchik said.
It was reported that Ukrainian pilot and MP Nadiya Savchenko, convicted in Russia, had been exchanged for Russian citizens Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, convicted in Ukraine, on May 25. The swap was judicially executed through the pardoning of Savchenko by the Russian president and the pardoning of Yerofeyev and Alexandrov by the Ukrainian president.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that on Wednesday a Rossiya Airlines plane had brought Yerofeyev and Alexandrov back to Moscow from Kyiv. Simultaneously, Savchenko was flown back to Kyiv on board a Ukrainian plane that collected her from Rostov-on-Don.