DHAKA: Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine have released 1,200 prisoners, Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko has said.

The releases followed Friday’s ceasefire deal, he said, which included an exchange of prisoners.

He was speaking during a visit to the strategic south-eastern port city of Mariupol, which has come under shelling from pro-Russian rebels in recent days.

Poroshenko announced his arrival in a tweet, ‘Mariupol is Ukraine. We will not surrender this land to anyone’.

Before the truce came into place, pro-Russian separatists made big gains in eastern Ukraine and seized territory a few miles outside Mariupol.

However, despite some sporadic shooting, the ceasefire appears to be holding.

Fighting in the east has killed some 2,600 people since April.

Poroshenko said that ‘over the past four days, we have managed to secure the release of 1,200 of our captives’, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, reports the BBC.

The announcement came after a ceasefire was reached in Minsk, Belarus, in talks brokered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The negotiations involved former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, leaders of the pro-Russian rebels, and a Russian delegate.

Poroshenko appealed on Monday for the OSCE to send representatives to areas where the ceasefire has been broken.

BDST: 2147 HRS, SEP 08, 2014