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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Self-proclaimed Luhansk repubic ready for prisoner exchange with Kiev

Prisoner exchange on "all for all" basis is one of the key point of the Minsk agreements on the Ukrainian settlement

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

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LUHANSK, April 24. /TASS/. The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) authorities have announced a round of prisoner exchange with Kiev for today, LPR people’s militia told TASS on Friday.

"Yesterday, we agreed that we will exchange 6 of their people for 12 our [LPR] people. They [Ukrainian side] agreed yesterday, but today something went wrong, and they are talking about readiness to hand over only half [six LPR people]," the LPR people’s militia said.

Prisoner exchange on "all for all" basis is one of the key point of the Minsk agreements on the Ukrainian settlement. Other points include ceasefire in Ukraine’s south-east, heavy weaponry withdrawal, local elections in Donbass and constitutional reform in Ukraine.

The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called "Normandy format" in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.

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Eastern Ukraine

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US State Department confirms secret shipments of long-range ATACMS missiles to Kiev

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The sides also exchanged views on the progress in the implementation of large-scale tasks set by the heads of the two states and heads of government along the political, trade, economic and migration trajectories, the implementation of projects on the cultural and humanitarian fronts