BIG PRISONER SWAP IN UKRAINE.
KYIV Ukrainian government forces and pro-russian separatists in eastern Ukraine completed a full prisoner swap on Sunday after busing remaining detainees in the five-year conflict to an exchange point in the breakaway Donbass region.
The exchange is likely to be hailed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as proof he is making good on a promise to bring captured Ukrainians home. But some in Ukraine are unhappy that riot police accused of opening fire on protesters against the country’s Russia-friendly then-president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 are among those who were handed over.
The office of Ukraine’s president said that 76 former pro-government detainees had returned home. “(They) are safe in Ukraine-controlled territory,” it said.
The swap, at a checkpoint near the industrial town of Horlivka in the Donetsk region, had initially been expected to see Ukraine hand over 87 separatists in exchange for 55 pro-government Ukrainians.
As the exchange began early in the morning, Ukrainian men and women dressed in civilian clothing got off a bus after being brought to the rendezvous point by separatist forces, and were then herded into a nearby tent.
Though the swap will help build confidence between the two sides who are wrangling over how to implement a 2014 peace deal, disagreements remain and full normalization is a long way off.