MOSCOW. March 14 (Interfax) - The second stage of the large-scale exchange of captives in Donbas has again been delayed, as the parties have been unable to reach agreement on the number of detained persons, a source in the TCG's humanitarian subgroup told Interfax.
The second prisoner swap is not on the agenda of the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), which began working in Minsk on Wednesday, the source said.
"The disagreements are too strong. Productive interaction between the parties is still not happening today, both in terms of the number of detained persons and different approaches to which persons out of those already convicted and on what counts should be considered 'illegally detained persons,'" the source said.
Meanwhile, according to the office of Daria Morozova, the ombudsman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), "Kyiv has illegally detained about 300 Donbas residents." "In accordance with the Minsk Agreements, all of them should be returned home without conditions as part of the 'all for all' swap," a representative of Morozova's office told Interfax.
Kyiv has not disclosed the exact number of persons being held in Donbas but said that it could be over than 100 people.
Both parties to the conflict said that the number of captives on either side is only growing every day.
"Further progress is extremely difficult without the adoption of an amnesty law. Kyiv continues to detain civilians near the contact line," the representative of the ombudsman's office said.
It was expected in late 2017 that the parties would hold the next round of the prisoner swap under the "74 for 29" formula in February or March.
However, the humanitarian subgroup has said that the new stage of the exchange should not be expected yet.
"The process of the prisoner swap once again narrowed down to the discussion of single names. No discussion of the new formula of the exchange has taken place so far. The dates of the second round of the swap are not on the agenda at all," the source said.
The source linked this to "Kyiv's weak negotiating stance," among other things.
"Kyiv's negotiations in the humanitarian subgroup do not have the necessary degree of independence in decision-making. The process of agreeing on the swap has stalled," the source said.
The self-proclaimed Donbas Republics repeatedly said that "it is difficult" to negotiate on the exchange of captives in Donbas without the participation of the leader of the social movement Ukrainian Choice, Viktor Medvedchuk, in a meeting of the humanitarian subgroup, and "there isn't movement on a single issue."
On December 27, 2017, 74 detained Ukrainians were released, and a total of 233 persons were handed over to Donetsk and Luhansk. It was the largest exchange of detained persons between the sides since 2015.