KIEV, September 7 (RIA Novosti) – Militants in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk have released 15 Kiev military servicemen who had been taken prisoner, according to Borys Filatov, Deputy Chairman of Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration on Domestic Policy.
“15 more prisoners have been picked up in Donetsk,” Filatov wrote on his Facebook page Sunday.
“The Donetsk side is releasing prisoners at our request without exchanges or preconditions. No comments. Make your own conclusions,” Filatov added in another post.
During the Friday meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk, representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) agreed to a ceasefire between Kiev and independence supporters that started at 15:00 GMT the same day.
The sides also agreed to allow international monitoring of the truce’s implementation, to conduct the “all for all” prisoner exchange and to ensure humanitarian aid access to combat zones.
Ukraine has been engulfed in violent internal conflict since mid-April, when Kiev began its military operation against independence supporters in the southeastern regions of the country.
According to United Nations’ estimates, over 2,500 people have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded since the start of the offensive.
