Kiev and pro-Russian separatists will exchange hundreds of prisoners soon, an aide to the head of Ukraine's SBU state security service has said, as the military reported a slight increase in rebel attacks.
The agreement to swap 125 Ukrainian servicemen for 225 rebels held by Kiev followed peace talks between envoys of Ukraine, Russia, the separatists and European security watchdog OSCE on Wednesday.
"We've prepared 225 people, which we will hand over. The main thing is for this not to fall through now," the SBU's Markiyan Lubkyvsky told Reuters.
The uprising by separatists began a month after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March, following the popular overthrow of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president. The conflict has killed more than 4,700 people.
The pro-Western government in Kiev accuses Russia of orchestrating the rebellion in Ukraine's east, a charge denied by Moscow.
Exchanging prisoners is one of the criteria of a 12-point peace protocol, which also includes a ceasefire, agreed by Kiev and rebels in September. But most of the plan has not yet been implemented due to repeated violations of the ceasefire and because separatists defied Kiev by holding leadership elections.
Ukraine's Interfax news agency quoted a rebel representative as saying the prisoners would be swapped by Dec. 30. Lubkyvsky did not confirm this date, but said the exchange would happen "soon".
It is not known exactly how many prisoners are currently held by the two sides, but Ukraine's military said this month around 600 Ukrainians were in rebel hands.
Around 1,300 people have been killed since the ceasefire was agreed in September, according to the United Nations, but the fighting has lessened significantly in December.
On Friday, however, the military said rebels had slightly stepped up their attacks on Ukrainian positions in the east of the country and reported that one Ukrainian servicemen had been killed in the past 24 hours.
"In the past two days, (rebel) fighters started using artillery and GRAD rocket launchers. Attacks have intensified to a minor extent," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told Reuters.
"Rebels are using the ceasefire to regroup their forces," he said later in a televised briefing.
Kiev authorities had said there could be further peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, the separatists and the OSCE in Minsk on Friday, but Belarus's Foreign Minister Dmitry Mironchik said they would not take place, Belarussian Interfax reported, without elaborating.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article