Ukraine said on Friday it had received the bodies of 250 slain soldiers in one of the largest exchanges of remains since then. Russia invaded in February 2022.
The two sides regularly replace the soldiers’ bodies as well as captured POWs in rare diplomatic agreements between Moscow and Kiev.
“As a result of repatriation operations, the bodies of 250 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Kyiv Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.
“This is one of the biggest” operations of its kind, spokesman Petro Yatsenko told AFP.
Kiev said it handed over the remains of 38 Russian soldiers in the deal, which was brokered by the International Red Cross.
DNA analysis will be used to identify the bodies before they are released into the custody of the families for funeral ceremonies and burials.
Some of those who returned were Ukrainian soldiers who had fought in the southern port city Mariupolcaptured in May 2022 by Russian forces after they had almost completely flattened it in one of the most intense aerial bombardments of the war.
Adri Salido/Anadolu via Getty Images
In January, Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war, exactly one week after Moscow accused Ukraine of shooting down a military transport plane carrying dozens of captured Ukrainian soldiers.
George Barros, of the Institute for the Study of War, recently told CBS News that Russia is using new tactics — including soldiers on motorcycles — to seize 430 square kilometers of territory in the past nine months.
But the price Russia is paying for making this progress is very high. According to Barros, the Russians are losing between 25,000 and 30,000 soldiers per month. By some estimates, Russia has suffered a staggering half a million killed or wounded since the invasion began in February 2022.