MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2019) Five former officers of the now-dissolved Ukrainian Berkut security force, who were serving sentences for killing protesters during the EuroMaidan in Kiev, have been handed over to the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) as part of the all-for-all prisoner exchange on Sunday, media reported their lawyer as saying.
A day prior, it became known that Kiev Court of Appeals had lifted sentences off the five men who were included in the list of prisoners to be exchanged between Kiev and Donetsk. They were released shortly thereafter in the recognizance.
"Yes, they have been exchanged," Valentin Rybkin, the group's lawyer, was quoted as saying by news agency Ukrinform.
The ex-officers' release comes as part of the 87-for-55 prisoner exchange between Kiev and the self-proclaimed DPR announced a day earlier.
The Berkut forces are widely held responsible for the violence on Kiev's Independence Square, which resulted in the deaths of over 100 people. The EuroMaidan, as it is now called, came after pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich turned down an economic cooperation agreement with the European Union. The events of EuroMaidan resulted in the toppling of Yanukovich and Ukraine decidedly shifting westward from Moscow.
