Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, chaired a meeting on the issue of citizens leaving the temporarily occupied territories through the territory of other countries.

The discussion was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the State Border Guard Service, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Police, the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Presidential Mission in Crimea, and the ZMINA Human Rights Centre.

The focus was on the procedure for the return of Ukrainians who served their sentences in prisons in the temporarily occupied territories and were deported by the occupiers to russia.

Such citizens are trying to leave russia through the territory of third countries.

The participants of the meeting agreed that the readmission procedure would be used to return Ukrainian citizens to their homeland.

In order to work out this mechanism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was instructed to hold a series of meetings with law enforcement agencies of the countries bordering russia.

In addition, the participants summed up the almost one-year-long pilot project on issuing ID cards for returning to Ukraine.

As a result, the project will be extended, with the responsible ministries taking two weeks to work out the relevant amendments to the legislation.