Father to the soldiers

The pardon of the Ukrainian pilot condemned in Russia Nadezhda Savchenko is not related to Minsk agreements. This was stated by President Vladimir Putin at a press conference following negotiations with the leadership of Greece, Interfax reports .

“This has nothing to do with the Minsk agreements, because in the Minsk agreements we are talking about held persons in the Donbass and in Ukraine, exported from the territory of Donbass,” the president said.

Putin noted that the pardon and return of Savchenko was discussed with the President of Ukraine Peter Poroshenko for a sufficiently long time. “The first task that stood in this regard was to return to Russia two Russian citizens convicted by the Ukrainian court and at that time in places of imprisonment in Ukraine,” the Russian president said. “The second. I could not make this decision without knowing the opinion on this issue of close relatives of our dead guys, dead journalists.”

In addition, Putin said that Russia would not keep any discussions of the return of Crimea to Ukraine with anyone. "As for the Crimea, the question, we believe, is completely closed. This is a historical solution to people living in Crimea," Putin said. The president added that in this regard, a well -known saying occurred to him: "God forbid to eat our wolf to your calf." “Therefore, let's not return to this anymore,” he said.

On Wednesday, the plane of the President of Ukraine delivered Savchenko from Rostov-on-Don to his homeland . Putin signed a decree on her pardon. At the same time, he noted that the relatives of the VGTRK employees who died in the Donbass of the dead in the Donbass turned to him. On fabricated charges of their murder, Savchenko was convicted in Russia by 22 years in prison.

At the same time, Poroshenko signed a decree on the pardon of convicts in Ukraine of the GRU special forces Evgeny Erofeev and Alexander Alexandrov. They were freed and delivered by an airplane to the Moscow Airport Vnukovo. Russian officials were not present at the airport. Erofeev and Alexandrov were only met by their wives. The airport was allowed to shoot only the Prochrevsky media, and none of the journalists could ask the released questions.

At a joint press conference with Savchenko, Poroshenko said that Ukraine will seek the return of the territories illegally rejected from it . “How we returned hope, so we will return the Donbass, so we will return Crimea to Ukrainian sovereignty,” the president said.

On Thursday, the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin approve of Poroshenko’s desire to “return the Donbass” for reasons of humanity, but do not accept claims to the Crimea. "If he had in mind that he intends to return the Donbass, guided by considerations of humanity, then such a statement can be supported. This is what we hope in Moscow. In the part of Crimea, we do not comment on the claims to the Russian regions," Peskov said.