You're reading: Convicts pardoned by president to be handed over to separate areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions

First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian representative in the humanitarian subgroup Iryna Gerashchenko has said that several convicts pardoned by President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will be handed over to separate areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

“I am very grateful to the president for this act of mercy, for his dedicated efforts to do everything possible to free the hostages. I recall that the Ukrainian side will release 15 previously convicted offenders from custody in the coming days as an act of humanism. Most of them have been pardoned by the president, among them – six women, elderly and sick persons,” she wrote on her Facebook page expressing the expectation that the other side will demonstrate humanism on the eve of holidays and “the process of hostages’ release will be unlocked.”