Kiev and Rebels Swap Hundreds of Captives in Peace Push
Local Editor
Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels swapped hundreds of prisoners on Friday as part of a new push for peace that came despite Kiev's decision to cut off key transport links to breakaway Crimea.
The prisoner exchange on a dark and isolated stretch of a road north of the devastated eastern rebel stronghold of Donetsk unfolded as negotiators from both sides held video talks on Skype at reviving stalled negotiations.
A round mediated by European and Russian envoys in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Wednesday was due to have been followed by a final one on Friday at which a comprehensive peace accord was signed.
But Wednesday's acrimonious session broke up after five hours with a deal reached on only the least contentious of the four agenda points: a prisoner swap involving 222 guerrillas and 145 Ukrainian troops.
And Ukraine's suspension on Friday of all bus and rail service to Crimea -- a decision made citing security concerns that effectively severed the peninsula of 2.3 million from the mainland -- added to the hostile tenor of the negotiations.
The video conferences have so far failed to produce a new date for direct talks.
Yet the prisoner handover went off without a hitch and now stands out as a rare example of cooperation between the two bitter enemies.
Some of the captives expressed surprise and joy at having the chance to go home in time for New Year's Eve -- the most cherished of all the holidays celebrated in once-communist eastern Europe.
"They only just told us that this would happen," said a slightly older Ukrainian soldier named Artyom Syurik.
"I am looking forward to seeing my parents and wife. They do not know I am coming."
Yet a rebel named Denis Balbukov sounded defiant as he sat in a Kamaz truck waiting to go home to Donetsk.
"I want to eat fried potatoes and talk to my relatives," said the 21 year old.
But "I will go back to fighting," he added. "It was alright once we were moved to the detention center, but to begin with, they really tormented and roughed us up."
And one of the 146 Ukrainian prisoner originally brought by the insurgents refused to rejoin his old military unit and was eventually taken back to Donetsk.
"All of my relatives are in Russia," the ethnically-Russian Alexei Samsonov said. "I consider what the Ukrainian army is doing not to be right."
State security sources in Kiev said the separatists were still holding about 500 government troops after Friday's exchange.
The same source said Ukraine would be willing to swap them for several dozen rebels now languishing in the country's jails.
Smaller such exchanges have been frequent and often involved dozens of men.
Yet they appeared to have built far less trust between the warring parties than Ukraine's Western allies would have hoped.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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