Kiev reports stalemate in prisoner exchange with E. Ukraine rebels

The Ukrainian government and independence-seeking insurgents have suspended the exchange of hostages detained during the conflict in eastern Ukraine, a spokesperson for Kiev's delegate to the three-party Contact Group on Ukraine crisis said on Wednesday.

"The prisoner swap hit a stalemate. Over the past week, we have received alarming signals about the deterioration of the situation with the release of people," Darka Olifer, spokesperson for Ukraine's representative in the group Leonid Kuchma, wrote on her Facebook page.

Without giving an exact reason for the stoppage of the prisoner exchange, Olifer said that Kiev has information that several captives from the Ukrainian side were allegedly transferred from a rebel military headquarters building to a prison facility in Donetsk.

"Ukraine demands the representatives of certain areas in Donetsk and Lugansk regions to immediately clarify the whereabouts of our citizens," she said.

The prisoner swap is a key part of the Minsk ceasefire agreement, designed to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 9,300 people since April 2014.

Earlier in the day, the three-party Contact Group of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk held talks in Minsk to discuss the current developments in eastern Ukraine. Endit