Donbas subgroup still unable to agree on prisoner-swap date
LUHANSK. Dec 5 (Interfax) - Participants in the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine did not determine the date of the exchange of prisoners-of-war between militiamen and the Ukrainian side during the recent meeting, Olga Kobtseva, the envoy of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) to the subgroup, said.
"It is still premature to talk about the date of the swap. Ukraine continues to carry out the 'procedural clearing' of detained persons," the Luhansk Information Center cited Kobtseva as saying.
"The exact date of the swap is to be announced," Kobtseva said.
"We have all necessary grounds to hope that the exchange will take place before the New Year," she said.
A meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group began in Minsk earlier on Tuesday, Viktoriya Talakina, spokeswoman for the envoy of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said. "The issues of ceasefire observance, the implementation of agreements on the withdrawal of proscribed weapons, and the disengagement of forces and hardware, as well as the discussion of preparations for the exchange of captives, are on the agenda of today's meeting," Talakina wrote on her Facebook account.