MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) – The next prisoner swap between Kiev and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic may occur in the next two or three days, a spokesman for the republic’s committee for prisoners of war said Monday.
“We are preparing a list for the next exchange. It will happen in 2-3 days,” he said.
According to the representative, Donetsk has already received 234 prisoners of war since the beginning of the exchange. It is unclear how many prisoners Kiev has received in return.
Independence supporters in the breakaway Donetsk region and Ukrainian authorities have so far carried out five prisoner exchanges. The swaps follow an agreement that was reached during the September 5 meeting of the trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk, Belarus.
Most recently, the sides exchanged 28 prisoners each on September 21, previously, 30 detainees had been swaped by both sides.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), who were present on both sides, monitored all swaps.
The announcement of the upcoming prisoner exchange followed a statement by DPR Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin, who accused authorities in Kiev of bringing "fake" militiamen to the swaps. According to the official, those recently handed over to the republic's self-defense forces were actually civilians snatched from their homes and framed as separatists.
