Ukraine Fighting Pauses, Briefly, for Big Prisoner Exchange<br />The Ukrainian security agency, known as the S.B.U., said on Wednesday<br />that a total of 3,215 Ukrainians captured by the rebels since 2014 had now been released and that 103 remained in captivity in rebel-held territory, with dozens more held prisoner in Russia.<br />27, 2017<br />MOSCOW — After a sharp escalation in fighting this month between the Ukrainian military<br />and Russian-backed separatists, the two sides took an unusual break from shelling each other on Wednesday to carry out their biggest exchange of prisoners since the conflict began in 2014.<br />The United States and the European Union have each set full implementation of the Minsk deal as a key condition for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea<br />and its support for pro-Russia rebels in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.<br />Ukraine was originally supposed to return 306 prisoners to rebel-held territory but said<br />that 40 of these had already been released and did not show up for the exchange, carried out at checkpoint near the rebel-held town of Horlivka.<br />The prisoner swap — involving 73 Ukrainians held captive by the rebels,<br />and more than 200 separatists captured by Ukraine — was carried out without serious incident just days after the Trump administration agreed to provide weapons to Ukraine.
