DPR Sends Prisoner Swap List of 220 Individuals, Awaits Kiev's Response

The Donetsk People's Republic has not noted any progress in the “all-for-all” prisoner exchange plan with Kiev despite the Minsk agreements.

DONETSK (Sputnik) – The eastern Ukrainian self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has sent a list of 220 prisoners to be swapped with Kiev, but a date has not yet been set for the exchange, a DPR ombudsman said Tuesday.

“I don’t have any information today on the date for the next [prisoner] exchange but I hope that the Ukrainian side will answer today. I cannot give the number or the date of the exchange yet. I sent them the first list of 220 military prisoners, Darya Morozova said.

Morozova said there were three different types of prisoner exchange lists.

“One of them is [a list] of soldiers who were taken prisoners, the second is politically oppressed [individuals], and that list has 800 names in it. And the third contains innocent civilians that as of March 7 contains 900 individuals,” she said.

She added that the DPR has not noted any progress in the “all-for-all” prisoner exchange with Kiev as noted in the Minsk agreements.

The Minsk ceasefire agreement, signed February, among other points obliged the warring sides to swap all prisoners.

Last month, Donbas militias handed over some 140 Ukrainian soldiers to Kiev, while the latter returned 50 prisoners to the independence supporters.

Since September 2014, the two sides have swapped hundreds of prisoners under an earlier agreement on Ukrainian reconciliation.