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DPR confirms reports about prisoner exchange with Ukraine in 3-for-3 format

MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] on Tuesday confirmed reports about prisoner exchange with the Ukrainian side in the free-for-free format earlier in the day.

"Today, the DPR and Ukraine held another prisoner exchange. Ukraine released three DPR residents and three Ukrainian were released in the DPR," a spokesman for DPR’s chief negotiator at peace talks in Minsk Denis Pushilin told the Donetsk News Agency.

The prisoner exchange was conducted at the line of engagement near a DPR checkpoint in the vicinity of the settlement of Maryinka.

Read also

Kiev says 131 Ukrainian still held prisoner in self-proclaimed republics in Donbass

Earlier on Tuesday, Russia’s envoy in the Contact Group on the Ukrainian settlement, Boris Gryzlov, reported another prisoner exchange session between Ukraine and the DPR. He said about 30 people have been released in the past weeks. "It means that the exchange mechanism we have managed to resume is really working," he underscored.

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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