MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. Russia knows nothing about the Russians who are being held hostage by Hamas, Russian presidential envoy for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Friday.
"We don’t have such information. We have no communication with hostages," he said, answering a TASS question about the Russian hostages. "This was the point of maintaining contacts with Hamas because they should know about the hostages. Moreover, we said that Hamas must share this information with the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is to go there to take the refugees before escorting them to Israel."
"We cannot take part in this, I mean physically. The agreement was that this will be done by the International Committee of thee Red Cross. <…> But Hamas says that they understand that Red Cross representatives cannot deal with the hostage release issues or go there and take them amid bombardments," he noted.
That is why, in his words, "it is necessary to stop airstrikes for at least a couple of hours, as was done when the Americans were released.".