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The exchange underscores how limited humanitarian cooperation has become more than three years into the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine has received another large transfer of war dead from Russia, marking one of the few areas where the two sides still maintain direct contact.
According to Reuters, citing Ukrainian officials and Russian media, the Ukrainian government agency responsible for prisoners of war confirmed that 1,000 sets of remains were returned on Thursday.
The last repatriation, carried out in late October, involved the same number of bodies.
“Today, repatriation measures took place. One thousand bodies, presented by the Russian side as those of Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” the agency wrote on Telegram, Ziare.com notes.
Ongoing exchanges
Ziare.com reported that with this transfer, Russia has returned more than 15,000 bodies to Ukraine since the start of the year.
Ukraine, for its part, has handed several hundred Russian remains back over the same period.
Heavy human toll
According to Ziare.com, the scale of the repatriations highlights the mounting losses on both sides. In an interview last February,
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had lost “nearly 46,000 soldiers” since 2022.
