Moscow, Russia – Russia has returned the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, including five who reportedly died while in Russian captivity, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed that the exchange was carried out under agreements reached during peace talks in Istanbul earlier this summer.
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According to the agency, most of the soldiers were killed in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions of southeastern Ukraine, while others died in Russia’s border region of Kursk, briefly occupied by Ukrainian forces during a surprise incursion last August.
Moscow has not yet officially commented on the exchange. However, Russia’s state-run news agency TASS, citing an unnamed source, reported that 19 bodies of Russian soldiers were handed over by Kyiv on the same day. A similar exchange – 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers for 19 Russian soldiers – was carried out on July 17.
Ukrainian officials stressed that five of the repatriated bodies were previously listed as severely wounded and expected to be part of a prisoner swap.
“The Russian side continues to delay and does not fulfill its obligations,” the Ukrainian headquarters said in a statement on Telegram.
During talks in Istanbul in June, Moscow and Kyiv agreed on a large-scale prisoner swap and the exchange of 6,000 bodies from each side. While a ceasefire deal proved elusive, the repatriation of fallen soldiers and prisoner exchanges remain one of the few active areas of cooperation since the war began in February 2022.
The Ukrainian agency added that law enforcement and military experts are now working to identify the returned remains.
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