Ukraine Separatists To Release High-Profile Academic In Prisoner Exchange

Militants have agreed that Ukrainian scholar Ihor Kozlovskiy, who was detained in Donetsk, will be included in the final exchange list to be negotiated during the Minsk talks.

Iryna Gerashchenko, a representative from the humanitarian subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group, reported this on her Facebook page:

"The other side finally promised, in the format of the TCG, to include I. Kozlovskiy when negotiating the final lists. The only question is when the other party will stop inventing flimsy reasons for the delay and we can agree upon a release date," she wrote.

Gerashchenko also said that Ukrainian Ombudsmen Lutkovska participated in the first phase of verifying the lists of detained persons.

On May 3 the "military tribunal" of the so-called "DPR" in occupied Donetsk sentence Kozlovskiy to two years an eight months in prison.

Militants have held Ukrainian religious scholar Ihor Kozlovskiy captive for more than a year. He was detained in January 2016 in Donetsk. Relatives say the 63-year-old academic has health problems.

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