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Contact Group agrees to exchange 50 prisoners of war in Donbas by January 20 - OSCE

Martin Sajdik said that the sides had pledged to provide more concrete information on prisoner exchanges by next week

Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine Martin Sajdik EPA/TATYANA ZENKOVICH, archive

Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine Martin Sajdik

© EPA/TATYANA ZENKOVICH, archive

MINSK, January 13 /TASS/. The Contact Group for the Ukrainian settlement agreed to exchange 50 prisoners of war from both sides of the Donbas conflict by January 20, according to Martin Sajdik, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine.

There is an agreement to release 50 people from both sides, Sajdik said after the Contact Group’s meeting.

He added that the sides had pledged to provide more concrete information on prisoner exchanges by next week.

Sajdik also explained that it would not be a "25 for 25" exchange. Ukraine is going to hand over more prisoners of war to the DPR and LPR than the self-proclaimed republics to Ukraine. Hopefully, it’s going to happen before January 20, he said.

Contact Group for Ukraine settlement calls for immediate ceasefire in Donbas as of January 14

The Contact Group has urged the sides in the Donbas conflict to establish immediate ceasefire as of 00:00 on January 14, Martin Sajdik said.

We fully support the proposal of the Russian representative in the Contact Group, Boris Gryzlov, to make a fresh attempt to guarantee the regime of silence and complete ceasefire on the eve of the Old New Year (which is being marked tonight according to the Julian calendar).

According to Sajdik, the silence regime should come into force as of midnight on Wednesday.

The Contact Group will discuss the regime’s implementation at its next meeting on January 20.

The sides in the Donbas conflict have made six attempts to establish a ceasefire regime since the autumn of 2014. The last truce was established on December 22, 2015 for a period of New Year holidays.

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