KIEV, September 22. /ITAR-TASS/. A total of 1,200 people, both servicemen and civilians, have been freed after being held hostage in eastern Ukraine, a spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine said on Monday.

“In the past 24 hours, 28 people have been released,” spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters.

The prisoner swap is one of the key points of the agreement, signed in Minsk on September 5 at the meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine. Since then, the sides have swapped hostages four times, exchanging 37, 70, 38 and 28 people on each side.

The next prisoner exchange is scheduled for Wednesday.

The presidential envoy for peaceful settlement in eastern Ukraine, Irina Heraschenko, said in early September that around 1,000 captives had been freed and more than 2,400 people had been gone missing.

Under the Minsk agreement, signed at talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the warring parties are to exchange all prisoners of war. The sides to the Ukrainian conflict also agreed on a ceasefire that took effect the same day.