Ukraine received the bodies of what Russia said were 1,000 fallen soldiers on Thursday, a government official said, in a rare moment of co-operation between the two countries as peace talks remain stalled.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POW) said officials would now “carry out all the necessary examinations to identify the repatriated bodies,” adding identification would take place “as soon as possible.”
It comes after Ukraine and Russia held several rounds of prisoner exchanges. The most recent, in August, saw both countries transfer 146 POWs each.
The prisoner swaps and deals to return fallen soldiers are two of the few tangible results of the three rounds of Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine held from May to July.
The negotiations — which aimed to reach at least a temporary ceasefire in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — have stalled.
Moscow has repeatedly attacked Ukraine, including some of the largest strikes since its all-out war began in early 2022, despite taking part in discussions aimed at finding an agreement to end it.
The latest repatriation was carried out as part of a joint effort between the Armed Forces, Ukraine’s Security Services, the Interior Ministry and with the support of the Red Cross, the Ukrainian coordination centre said.
Ukraine has previously said that Russia has handed over bodies of its own soldiers, claiming they are Ukrainian.
Domestic media, citing officials, reported in June that three soldiers handed back to Ukraine as part of an exchange of fallen soldiers were in fact Russian, as part of an attempt by Moscow to obscure the true scale of its losses on the battlefield.
Despite Thursday’s rare instance of cooperation, talks between Russia and Ukraine remain gridlocked with US President Donald Trump’s ultimatums and deadlines for the Kremlin to agree to peace passing without consequence.
Russian attacks on Thursday killed at least five in the town of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, officials said, after Moscow used a FAB-250 bomb on a residential area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for a joint multi-layered European air defence system in the face of continued Russian aggression.
Additional sources • AP