Ukrainian politician and Vladimir Putin's close friend Viktor Medvedchuk, who is actively engaged in talks on an exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas, expects that the next swap may be conducted according to the "74-for-29" formula, Russia's state-owned TV Channel Russia-1 reports.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has promised financial assistance and health care to Ukrainian hostages freed by militants in occupied Donbas, according to the TV news service TSN.
Ukraine has released 233 prisoners who were detained in connection with the war in the country's east and were servicing their sentence in Ukrainian prisons, in exchange for 73 Ukrainian hostages kept by militants in occupied areas in Donbas, according to the press service of the Ukrainian parliament's secretariat.
The so-called leader of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR"), Alexander Zakharchenko, has announced details of a swap of prisoners of war (POW) scheduled for Wednesday, December 27, and Ukrainian delegates have left for Donbas.
Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group, Ambassador Martin Sajdik says that conditions of dignity and respect should be provided for each of the persons to be exchanged as part of the Donbas prisoner swap scheduled for Wednesday, December 27.
Russian citizen Victor Ageyev who is facing trial in the Ukrainian town of Novoaidar in Luhansk region for terrorism is not on the list for a swap of prisoners of war, which is supposed to be conducted by Christmas, according to the Ukrainian news outlet hromadske.ua.