Ukrainian Security Service main investigative department director Vasyl Vovk hopes that a new round of the Trilateral Contact Group negotiations in Minsk will take place on Sunday, Dec. 21 and the sides will exchange captives.
“Hopefully, it [a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk] will be held on Dec.21 and we will be able to speak about the freeing of captives on both sides already next week,” he said in a program aired by channel 112 on Dec.18.
Vovk said they should not be focused on figures because the main prisoner swap principle was “all for all” and digits might be adjusted by the release of certain prisoners outside of the efforts of the Ukrainian Security Service’s hostage freeing center.
“There is no “152 for 222” format. There is only one format, and it is “all for all”. The territories which call themselves the DPR and the LPR are releasing everyone whom they are illegally holding at gunpoint. We are releasing those held in procedural custody by making relevant procedural decisions consistent with the current Ukrainian legislation. The Ukrainian Security Service has counted 225 persons of the sort. We have conveyed these digits to our opponents in the LPR/DPR,” he emphasized.
The Ukrainian Security Service said on Dec.10 that Donbas militants were holding 684 captives and expressed hope that most of those persons would be exchanged and freed before the end of the year.
The DPR Novorossiya tweeted on Dec.18 that the DPR administration was planning the soonest possible transfer of 152 Ukrainian POWs.
