You're reading: Kuchma: Contact group agrees to release 20 people at first stage

The contact group on the peaceful settlement of the crisis in eastern Ukraine at a meeting in Minsk on July 31 agreed to release at the first stage 20 persons captured in clashes in the Donbas, second Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has said.

“Twenty people will be released in the near future,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

In addition, he said, “we got a promise to transfer personal belongings of those killed on board the Boeing.”

“Additional routes for experts traveling to the crash site will be
determined in the near future,” he said, adding that “as far as I know,
today at 7 a.m. they again left out there.”

The group is due to continue its work at the level of experts in Minsk on Friday, Aug. 1.

The first deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk
People’s Republic” (DPR), Andriy Purhin, has claimed that the sides
attending the Minsk talks agreed that 20 Ukrainian soldiers taken
captive in eastern Ukraine would be exchanged for 20 detained militants.

“The only agreement reached at yesterday’s talks was a prisoner swap.
It was suggested that 20 people from one side would be exchanged for 20
people from the other site. However, it remains unknown when it may
happen. Possibly, it will not happen at all,” Purhin told Interfax. The
DPR representative said he was not satisfied with such arrangements.

“Initially, both we and European experts insisted on a prisoner swap
under an “all for all” principle. However, the agreement that was
reached yesterday will most likely become a kind of screen intended to
cover the absence of results at the talks. Certainly, such an agreement
cannot help but cause our mistrust. Apparently, the Ukrainian side is
simply playing for time,” he said.