New Russian human rights commissioner holds first meeting with Ukrainian counterpart

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova has held her first meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Lubinets, with the two agreeing to expand cooperation in the field of humanitarian assistance.

"Today, we held the first meeting with Dmitry Lubinets. We discussed ways not only to preserve the best practices that have already been developed between the commissioners but also to further develop them," Lantratova told reporters after the meeting, which took place on the Belarus-Ukraine border.

According to her, in particular, the ombudspersons will exchange lists of people both sides are ready to accept and to hand over; they also agreed to continue joint visits to prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine, along with efforts to convey 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," Lantratova added.