REUTERS
To prepare for the next round of prisoner exchange in 2018, the Ukrainian side has already provided the pro-Russian militants in Donbas with a list of hostilities-related detainees and in turn received the updated list of hostages illegally held in the temporarily occupied territories in eastern Ukraine, according to Darka Olifer, the press secretary of Ukraine’s ex-president Leonid Kuchma, now the country’s representative in the Tripartite Contact Group on Donbas settlement.
"Hostage release is the main direction of the humanitarian subgroup’s efforts. This year, the parties have already exchanged lists of detained persons.We believe that the next release should take place as soon as possible," the message says.
"We will continue to lobby the initiative of the International Committee of the Red Cross to create an international mechanism for searching for missing persons," the report says.
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Among the liberated Ukrainian hostages, there were 32 military and 41 civilians.