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Ukraine, LPR exchange prisoners in three-for-six format

The first and the only prisoner exchange in 2016 took place on February 20 in the vicinity of the settlement of Maryinka near Donetsk

© Mikhail Sokolov/TASS

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Ukraine's Donetsk republic suggests 25-50 prisoner exchange to Kiev

MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. Ukraine and the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) have exchanged prisoners in the six-for-three format, LuganskInfirmCenter said on Friday.

"The Lugansk People’s Republic and Ukraine have carried out prisoner exchange in the three-for-six format near the town of Schastye," the news agency said.

The first and the only prisoner exchange in 2016 took place on February 20 in the vicinity of the settlement of Maryinka near Donetsk. On that day, Ukraine released five militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and a priest who was detained in the summer of 2015. The DPR released two communications officers of the Ukrainian army and a gunmen from the Donbass paramilitary battalion.

Prisoner exchanges in the all-for-all format is one of the key provisions of the Package of Measures on the implementation of the Minsk agreements that was signed in the Belarusian capital Minsk on February 12 after marathon talks between the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.

Apart from that, the 13-point Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk agreements, known as Minsk-2, in particular included an agreement on cessation of fire from February 15, withdrawal of heavy armaments, as well as measures on long-term political settlement of the situation in Ukraine, including establishment of working subgroups as priority tasks.

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