The main news today is that the prisoner exchange is due to be completed. From our news desk:
Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine were due on December 27 to complete their exchange of prisoners.
Ukrainian news agency UNIAN said 146 of the planned 150 Ukrainian government troops were handed over on December 26.
UNIAN said the remaining four should be handed over on December 27.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met with the recently released servicemen at a military air base early December 27 telling them "as president, and as an ordinary citizen, my heart is filled with joy that you…will be able to greet the New Year with your families."
Ukrainian authorities were supposed to deliver 220 separatist gunmen. It was unclear if all of those people were exchanged on December 26.
State security sources in Kyiv said the separatists would still be holding about 500 government soldiers after the exchange.
And here is Poroshenko meeting some of the prisoners.
And completely unrelated to any of this, there's this:
Yevhenia Tymoshenko, the daughter of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is due to be married December 27 in the capital Kyiv.
Yevheniya Tymoshenko, 34, will marry Artur Chechetkin, an American businessman born and raised in Odesa.
The wedding is due to be held in the Olimpiyskiy Sports Complex in central Kyiv.
Yulia Tymoshenko has asked guests, rather than buying traditional wedding gifts, to donate goods to the military battallion sponsored by her Batkivshchyna Party.
It is the second wedding for Yevheniya Tymoshenko, who was previously married to the British rock musician Sean Carr.
More on the prisoner swap from our news desk:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has welcomed home as heroes 145 soldiers released by pro-Russian fighters in a prisoner swap.
Poroshenko met the soldiers as they disembarked from a cargo plane that landed at a military airport outside Kyiv early in the morning on December 27.
The Ukrainian leader shook hands and embraced the men, who had been held for months by pro-Russian militia fighters in Donetsk region.
Poroshenko praised the soldiers for keeping their "military morale" and "demonstrating the best qualities of a Ukrainian warrior."
The release of the Ukrainian soldiers is part of a prisoner swap agreed with separatist fighters during negotiations in Minsk on December 24.
Kyiv on Friday freed 222 insurgent fighters captured near Donetsk.
A much smaller prisoner swap is due to take place December 27 in Luhansk region.
European mediators hope the swap will reignite stalled peace talks.
More from our news desk on the Crimea transport story:
Ukraine has suspended all transport services to Russian-annexed Crimea, citing a deteriorating security situation.
All passenger and cargo train services to the peninsula were halted on December 27.
A day earlier, authorities canceled bus services and stopped letting passenger cars pass through the Armyansk and Perekop checkpoints on the border with Crimea.
Ukraine has already banned sea and air traffic with the territory, which is still serviced by Russian airlines.
The peninsula's only land link is with Ukraine and it has remained dependent on the Ukrainian mainland for most of its supplies, including much of its electricity and water.
Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on December 27 the transport suspension was a temporary measure to prevent "subversive groups disguised as local residents" from entering the Ukraine mainland.
Lysenko did not say when transport services will be restored.
Barring any major developments that ends our live blogging for today.