Ukrainian authorities and separatists swap prisoners

HORLIVKA, Ukraine — Ukrainian authorities and Russian-backed separatist rebels on Wednesday conducted the biggest exchange of prisoners since the start of an armed conflict in the country’s east and a sign of progress in the implementation of a 2015 peace deal.

Rebels from the selfproclaimed separatist republics in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions handed over 74 captives, while Ukraine’s government delivered 233. Some had been held for more than a year.

Carrying their belongings, the prisoners were exchanged in the town of Horlivka and the village of Zaitseve, in an area dividing the separatist regions and Ukraine. One held a cat.

“I’m out of hell. I have survived,” said Yevhen Chudentsov, who served with one of Ukraine’s volunteer battalions in the east and was taken prisoner in February 2015.

Chudentsov said he faced threats and beatings while in rebel custody, and his front teeth were knocked out. He was initially sentenced to capital punishment, which was later changed to 30 years in prison. He said after his release in Horlivka that he would join the Ukrainian military again.

The exchange was supervised by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a trans-Atlantic security and rights group that has deployed monitors to eastern Ukraine.

Many of the captives were not combatants. Some were activists and bloggers who were charged with spying or treason.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko praised the Ukrainian prisoners held by the rebels for their endurance.

The simmering conflict between the separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.