Ukraine announced Thursday that it had received from Russia 501 new bodies of soldiers killed allegedly in the conflict, bringing to more than 4,000 the number of remains transmitted by Moscow to Kyiv since the start of the year.
“As a result of repatriation efforts, 501 remains were returned to Ukraine. According to the Russian side, these could be those of Ukrainian soldiers,” indicated the Ukrainian Center for Prisoners of War, which only recognizes the bodies returned as those of soldiers after a long identification process.
Kyiv did not specify that it had handed over any bodies to Russia.
Exchanges of soldiers’ remains take place regularly. Since the start of the year, Russia has handed over more than 4,000 bodies in six exchanges, while Ukraine has transferred just over a hundred.
By 2025, Kyiv had received more than 14,000 remains of suspected slain soldiers, while Moscow had recovered fewer than 400.
The exchanges of bodies of killed soldiers and prisoners of war constitute the only tangible results of the negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, more than four years after the start of the Russian invasion.
Efforts toward a peace deal or ceasefire have stalled since the Middle East war began in February.
