Ukraine, Russia-Backed Separatists Begin Prisoner Swap
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- Ukrainian authorities and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have started a prisoner swap, the office of Ukraine's president said on December 29.
"At the Mayorsk checkpoint the process of releasing detained persons has begun," the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian president said, while posting several photos of buses, ambulances, and armed soldiers.
"The swap has started,” Darya Morozova, the so-called ombudsman of a Russia-backed separatist group that calls itself the Donetsk People's Republic was quoted as saying earlier by Russian news agencies.
The Ukrainian side is expected to hand over 87 people, while the separatists are set to swap 55, the UNIAN news agency quoted a representative of the separatist group as saying.
If completed, it would be the second major prisoner exchange involving Ukrainians caught up in the conflict in four months.
The exchange is expected to take place near the village of Horlivka near Mayorsk, some 35 kilometers north of Donetsk, media reports say.
The notion of an "all-for-all" prisoner exchange gained momentum during peace talks in Paris on December 9 among the so-called Normandy Four -- Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany -- trying to bring an end to the five-year conflict.
In the last one, Russia and Ukraine traded a total of 70 prisoners in a move that many regarded as progress in efforts to deescalate a war that has killed more than 13,000 people since Moscow forcibly annexed Crimea and Russia-backed gunmen grabbed swaths of eastern Ukraine including parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014.
Russia insists it is not a party to the conflict, despite significant evidence that includes communication with separatist leaders, captured Russians, and Russian casualties in the fighting.
The move is not without controversy in Kyiv.
According to AFP, the government is expected to hand over to the separatists several riot police officers suspected of killing protesters during a pro-Western uprising in 2014.
Families of the victims of the riot police wrote on Facebook in an open letter to Zelenskiy, warning that the release of the men could lead to a "wave of protests."
"We would like to inform you that these people are neither participants nor victims of the conflict in eastern Ukraine," they wrote.
The conflict in the region known as the Donbas is one of the biggest challenges facing Zelenskiy, who campaigned on a vow to end the conflict. He was inaugurated on May 20.
The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia for its support of the separatists in eastern Ukraine and for the seizure and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.
With reporting by Reuters, AFP and Interfax
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Saturday, December 28, 2019. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
