YALTA, August 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) militia in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region will independently decide whether to release the encircled Ukrainian army soldiers or not, an LPR leader said on Friday.

Aleksei Mozgovoi said at the conference “Russia, Ukraine, Novorossia: Global Problems and Challenges” that “it’s our internal affair whether to release or not the ‘mouse-trapped’ Ukrainians. We can thankfully accept the advice, but will do it our own way,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in the early hours on Wednesday urged the militias in the southeast of Ukraine to open a humanitarian corridor for the encircled Ukrainian army soldiers.

“I call on the militia groups to open a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian service members who have been surrounded, so as to avoid any needless loss of life, giving them the opportunity to leave the combat area unimpeded and reunite with their families, to return them to their mothers, wives and children, and to quickly provide medical assistance to those who were injured in the course of the military operation,” the president said in a message, posted on the Kremlin website.

Premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Aleksandr Zakharchenko has generally supported the Russian president’s initiative.

“We are ready to provide humanitarian corridors for encircled Ukrainian troops on condition that they surrender heavy weapons and ammunition so that the weaponry and ammunition would not be used against us,” he said on the Rossiya 24 TV channel.