Negotiators vow to enforce cease-fire in eastern Ukraine

The prisoner swap is a key part of the Minsk ceasefire agreement, which is aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine that erupted in April 2014, with more than 9,000 people killed thus far.

Ukraine’s president says he expects the government to restore control over the separatist-held eastern Ukraine before the year’s end.

Mr Poroshenko said Kiev had “irrefutable evidence – satellite pictures and intelligence video – showing Ukraine’s borders being crossed by the latest Russian military equipment and units of the Russian armed forces”.

“Now the Minsk agreements need a new road map – new dates – for when the sides will undertake to implement all its points, without exception”. Even if other routes are eventually found, the trade disruption – along with a ban on Ukrainian agricultural imports into Russian Federation – may add up to 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent of 2016 gross domestic product, investment bank Dragon Capital in Kiev predicts.

Poroshenko blames Russian Federation for the failure to meet the original deadline.

“Ukraine exits the free trade area with Russia, raises duties on all goods and puts a trade embargo on all food products manufactured in the Russian Federation, as well as on auto building and engineering products”, said Ukrainian Prime Arseniy Yatsenyuk, according to a statement released by the country’s government.

Russia’s economy has been contracting as the price of oil, its major export, drops to record lows.

Ukraine accused Russian Federation of interfering in its internal affairs.

Herbst says Gryzlov’s appointment shows the Kremlin is looking for new ways out of the current situation. “But, what they decide to do is still very much an open question”.

Ukrainian Army soldiers patrol the empty streets of Debaltseve, in the Donetsk region, on February 3, 2015.

The optimal size would be + Geneva + with the participation of our partners in the European Union and the United States and perhaps the countries that signed the memorandum of Budapest, Russia, Britain and the United States, who had vouched for the sovereignty of Ukraine in 1994 after the former Soviet republic had abandoned its nuclear weapons, he said.