WASHINGTON – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, delegates to the PEN Congress in Manila, and speakers and attendees at a press conference in Kyiv on October 1 all raised their voices to call for the release of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) contributor Stanislav Aseyev, who was marking his 30th birthday that day – the third spent as a prisoner held incommunicado by Russia-backed forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Mr. Zelenskyy acknowledged Mr. Aseyev’s birthday in public remarks, stating that he “has been in prison in the DPR [Donetsk people’s republic] for more than two years,” and that the Ukrainian government is “applying maximum efforts for his return and the return of all our citizens.” The Ukrainian president made the statement at a press briefing on the October 1 meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group, the body overseeing negotiations among the sides to the conflict, about the next stage of prisoner exchanges.