(Bloomberg) -- Ukraine blamed Russia for rejecting an effort to swap prisoners for the first time in one and a half years.
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Roman Bezsmertnyi, Ukraine’s representative in Minsk talks, said Thursday that Russia rejected a proposal to release 208 prisoners from separatist self-proclaimed republics in the country’s east in exchange of 69 Ukrainians held in territories outside government control.
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This rejected swap wasn’t supposed to include 24 sailors detained last year. Last week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held negotiations by phone with President Vladimir Putin about a potential prisoner exchange between the neighbors locked in a deadly conflict for half a decade.
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