Russia and Ukraine begin prisoner exchange in landmark deal

Busses from a Russian prison headed towards a Moscow airport “within the framework of preparations,” said Russian TV on Saturday, adding that planes flew to Kiev and Moscow.

Witnesses also said two busses with tinted windows and a police escort left a Moscow jail on Saturday.

The buses were carrying an undisclosed number of people, Reuters reported.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday that he expected large numbers of prisoners to be exchanged.

It is unclear how many prisoners are to be exchanged as part of the deal.

President Putin also said that the prisoner swap would be “a good step forward towards the normalization (of relations)” with Kiev.

Russia’s list is dominated by 24 Ukrainian sailors it detained off Crimea in November last year.

They were captured along with three naval ships amid “an invasion of Russian territorial waters,” Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said at the time.

Relations between Moscow and Kiev have deteriorated since 2014, when the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea rejoined Russia following a referendum, where more than 90 percent of participants voted in favor of the move.

Kiev, along with the West, brands the reunification as annexation of Ukrainian land by Russia.

In siding with Ukraine, the EU, and some other Western countries have followed Washington’s lead in leveling several rounds of sanctions against Moscow.