Russia hands over another 1,200 bodies of soldiers to Ukraine
Russia has handed over to Kiev the remains of 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers, both sides confirmed on Friday.
The transfer was first announced in Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The organization said the bodies will now be subjected to examination to confirm the identities of the deceased. Russian MP Shamsail Saraliev, a member of the parliamentary coordination group on the Ukraine military operation, confirmed the transfer to local media.
Footage from the scene taken at an undisclosed location shows the latest batch of bodies being delivered to Ukraine by a train carrying refrigerated freight containers placed on flatbed carriages. The bodies were subsequently loaded into a Ukrainian freight train. According to Russian media reports, Moscow did not receive any bodies of fallen soldiers from the Ukrainian side this time.
This comes after another exchange of slain soldiers carried out on Wednesday. The Russian side returned the remains of 1,212 Ukrainian servicemen, receiving 27 bodies in return, according to Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who serves as Moscow's chief negotiator in talks with Kiev.
Moscow decided to return more than 6,000 slain Ukrainian soldiers during negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul earlier this month. The transfer has been marred by repeated delays, with Moscow accusing Kiev of deliberately delaying acceptance of the bodies. According to Medinsky, the first batch of remains was swiftly delivered to the designated exchange areas, but Ukrainian representatives were nowhere to be found. It turned out that Ukraine had rescheduled the meeting without giving notice.
Apart from exchanging slain soldiers, Moscow and Kiev have also agreed to conduct several POW swaps, primarily focusing on seriously wounded or ill captives, as well as those under 25. Over the past week, the two sides held three prisoner exchanges but did not disclose the exact numbers of soldiers involved. According to Medinsky, each side is expected to return some 1,200 soldiers during the ongoing swaps.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Kiev has been lagging behind schedule with the exchange and was unable to perform the swaps 'daily' as agreed in Istanbul. 'Unfortunately, the Ukrainian side is not ready to conduct exchanges in that swift mode,' the military said in a statement on Thursday.
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