REUTERS
Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine Martin Sajdik announces that the Trilateral Contact Group on the implementation of the peace plan in the east of Ukraine agreed in Minsk on Tuesday that 20 prisoners of war (POW) would be released on October 29, according to Belarus news service BELTA.
The Ukrainian side will release 11 persons, while the Russian-back militants pledged to free nine persons, BELTA wrote.
"The simultaneous swap will take place on October 29. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross plan to be present," Sajdik told reporters on Tuesday.
He also called on the parties to the conflict to find ways to release all the hostages and POWs.
In his words, the release of all the hostages and POWs was agreed way back in February this year under the Minsk peace agreements.
As UNIAN reported earlier, despite long-lasting negotiations, conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine and the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup in Minsk, an operation to free hostages and POWs failed on October 16 because of representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.