DONETSK, September 18. /ITAR-TASS/. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) hopes to agree on Friday in Belarusian capital Minsk on specific actions to put into practice the provisions of the protocol signed during the previous meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine, a source close to the DPR leadership told ITAR-TASS on Thursday.

“A memorandum, a document on actions will probably be signed in Minsk,” the source said.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry told ITAR-TASS on Thursday that the Contact Group’s meeting on Ukraine is scheduled for September 19 in Minsk.

According to UN data, clashes between troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions during Kiev’s military operation to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the DPR and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), have resulted in about 3,000 deaths and massive destruction and forced hundreds of thousands to flee Ukraine’s embattled southeast.

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire and exchange of captives during talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Minsk on September 5. The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprises Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE. The talks also involved DPR and LPR leaders.

The sides have twice swapped prisoners, exchanging 37 and 70 people from each side. The swap of 50 captives scheduled for today will not take place because Kiev failed to draft lists of prisoners, DPR prisoners-of-war affairs committee head Darya Morozova told ITAR-TASS.

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on September 16 passed the law granting a special self-rule status to certain districts in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions for three years. Elections to local self-government bodies were set for December 7.

The special status law was stipulated by the Minsk agreements reached September 5 on the basis of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seven-point plan proposed two days before.

The Verkhovna Rada also passed a law on amnesty for participants of combat activities in Ukraine’s troubled eastern regions except for those people who committed serious crimes.