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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Militias in eastern Ukraine hold 146 national guards prisoner − deputy commander

The contact with all the prisoners is being maintained, but the negotiations on their release are slow-going

© EPA/KONSTANTIN GRISHIN

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More than 1,000 Ukrainian troops released over ceasefire in eastern Ukraine

KIEV, October 6. /TASS/. A total of 146 Ukrainian national guards are held prisoner by the militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and the negotiations on their release are slow-going, the first deputy commander of the national guard, Alexander Krivenko, said on Monday.

He said contact was being maintained with all these men. At the same time there are also those who are listed missing.

“It is not ruled out that they may be receiving medical treatment somewhere, but there are also those who took refuge at private households and are now coming out of hiding,” he explained, saying that “for some obscure reasons” the process of releasing those people was very slow-going.

As the deputy chief of a think-tank under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Volodymyr Polevoy, said since the moment the ceasefire regime was established in Donbass, more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops have been freed.

On September 5 the Contact Group for Ukraine met in session in Minsk to sign a 12-point protocol on the peace settlement in the south-east of the country. The cessation of hostilities and exchange of prisoners of war were its core principles.

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