A regular prisoner exchange between the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Ukraine will be held Saturday, February 20, in line with the “3 for 6” formula, DPR human rights commissioner Darya Morozova told the Donetsk News Agency on Thursday.
“Representative of the Ukrainian side in the working subgroup on humanitarian issues Viktor Medvedchuk has confirmed the prisoner swap in line with the ‘three for six’ formula. The exchange will take place Saturday,” ombudswoman Morozova wrote in a social network.
She also noted that she had prepared a few more proposals for the Ukrainian side on prisoner exchanges.
“We have got several more proposals for our opponents on further swaps, I sincerely hope they will take place as soon as possible,” Morozova said.
The prisoner exchange is one of the key points of the Package of Measures on implementation of the Minsk agreements on settlement in Ukraine.
At a Contact Group meeting January 13, its participants agreed to swap over 50 captives by January 20. But it never happened. The parties to the conflict accused each other of disrupting the exchange. After Minsk talks on January 20, the OSCE chief’s special representative in the Contact Group Martin Sajdik said direct talks between the Ukrainian, Lugansk and Donetsk sides were being held.
On February 12, 2015, the capital of Belarus, Minsk, saw the signing of a Package of Measures on implementation of the Minsk Agreements to settle the situation in Ukraine. The document was approved by leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) and was supported by the United Nations Security Council.
The Package of Measures described in detail the schedule of actions to establish peace and settle the political crisis in Donbass until the end of 2015.
But most points of the plan have not been completely implemented. Ukraine’s political commitments, in line with the Minsk Agreements, are to adopt amendments to the constitution, which are to be coordinated with representatives of separate districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, to adopt the law on amnesty, to hold local elections in the region.
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