“Nothing is more important than to return our people home,” Petro Poroshenko said in the meeting with the relatives of the hostages.

“I hope everything will be alright. I hope it will be a symbol of our struggle and victory. Believe me, I’ve been waiting for this day for three years as well,” the President said.

“It was a very exhausting and professional struggle for everyone. I believe it will bring the result tomorrow,” the President emphasized.

The Head of State thanked the relatives of the Ukrainian hostages for their faith in the Ukrainian state and a joint struggle.

“Thank you for this dignity, this faith, this patience. Few people can understand the cost of this patience. It is also your merit that tomorrow can happen,” Petro Poroshenko addressed the relatives of the hostages.

The Head of State emphasized that the work on the liberation had lasted 24/7 over the recent days for all the necessary legal mechanisms to be applied.

The President used all the opportunities of the international pressure: from the Normandy format to our partners from the U.S., from the church to the negotiating group, from the Trilateral Contact Group to the OSCE and international organizations, from the ICRC to the Commissioner for Human Rights. “Everyone was involved and worked as a single mechanism to make tomorrow possible,” Petro Poroshenko stressed.

The President emphasized that the exchange was possible also due to the Minsk agreements, as they cleary envisage that.

The Head of State informed that every liberated Ukrainian would get proper medical assistance.

He also addressed the Government to provide the liberated Ukrainians and their families with material aid to facilitate their adaptation.

The relatives of Ukrainian hostages thanked the President for his efforts and attention to the problem of liberation of our hostages. They urged to “continue joint efforts and stay united”. “They haven’t come back yet, however you are already thinking about their rehabilitation. Thank you for that,” the wife of the military who will be liberated said.

Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Hrytsak said that the Service would provide transportation and accommodation of the relatives of the Ukrainian hostages for the period of waiting for their return.

Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for rehabilitation of participants of the antiterrorist operation, ATO veteran Vadym Svyrydenko thanked the relatives for their faith. "I was captive and I know how important the faith of relatives is," he said and assured that "a team of psychologists is ready to meet the military and will do everything to bring them back in conditions in which they left their relatives".

In turn, Iryna Gerashchenko, the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the Representative of the President in the Trilateral Contact Group on Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in the Donbas thanked the President of Ukraine for the ongoing, constant and persistent efforts to free the Ukrainian hostages at all possible international platforms. "The struggle was for every person," Iryna Gerashchenko said and added that the work on the release had not yet been completed.