Updated on 06:27 p.m. Moscow Time
ULAN BATOR (Mongolia), September 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said that the warring sides in Ukraine need to exchange prisoners in an “all for all” format in order to settle the crisis in the war-torn country.
“An exchange of forcibly held individuals in the form of ‘all for all’ without any type of preliminary conditions should be organized,” Putin said.
Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed the first steps to bringing an end to the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine over the telephone and that the presidents’ views to exiting the crisis were extremely similar.
Since mid-April, Kiev has been conducting a military operation against the southeastern regions of Ukraine that refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government after a February coup. The fighting intensified after Donetsk and Luhansk regions proclaimed independence in May.
Almost 2,600 people, including the victims of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash, have been killed and more than 6,000 injured since the start of Kiev’s military operation in eastern Ukraine, according to the UN.
Moscow continues to insist on an immediate end to the “punitive operation” in eastern Ukraine.
