Latest news with #bodyexchange
CTV News
2 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Russia continues to accuse Ukraine of delaying planned exchange of dead fighters
Fire and smoke rise from the site where a Russian missile struck a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, June 7, 2025, (AP Photo/Anatolii Lysianskyi) Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Kyiv that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Ukraine had postponed the swap. Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, as saying that Russia delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the exchange site at the border and is waiting for confirmation from the Ukrainian side, but that there are 'signals' that the process of transferring the bodies will be postponed until next week. Russia and Ukraine each accused the other on Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, which was agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war. Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin aide who led the Russian delegation, said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post on Saturday, Medinsky said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came. In response, Ukraine said Russia was playing 'dirty games' and manipulating facts. According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn't correspond to agreements reached on Monday. It wasn't immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting claims. In other developments, one person was killed and another seriously wounded in Russian aerial strikes on the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region. These strikes came after Russian attacks targeted the regional capital, also called Kharkiv, on Saturday. Regional police in Kharkiv said on Sunday that the death toll from Saturday's attacks had increased to six people. More than two dozen others were wounded. Russia fired a total of 49 exploding drones and decoys and three missiles overnight, Ukraine's air force said Sunday. Forty drones were shot down or electronically jammed. Meanwhile, Russia's defense ministry said that its forces shot down 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, including near the capital. Two people were wounded when a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at a chemical plant in the Tula region. The Associated Press
Russia Today
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Moscow and Kiev exchange remains of fallen soldiers
Moscow and Kiev have exchanged the remains of fallen servicemen, Russian MP Shamsail Saraliev has told RBK media outlet. The lawmaker is a member of the parliamentary commission overseeing the country's military operation against Ukrainian forces. According to Saraliev, the Russian Defense Ministry returned 909 bodies to Ukraine and received the remains of 34 Russian soldiers in exchange. Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed the swap in a Telegram post, saying Kiev had received the bodies of 909 servicemen. It did not disclose how many of Russia's fallen soldiers were handed over. The operation involved the Ukrainian military as well as the domestic security service, the SBU, and was coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross, it added. Similar swaps have been carried out on a monthly basis. In January, Russia handed 757 bodies to Ukraine in exchange for the remains of 49 troops. In February, Kiev received 757 bodies, while 45 were returned to Russia. In March, the sides exchanged the remains of 909 Ukrainian servicemen for the bodies of 43 Russians, including eight civilians who were captured during Kiev's cross-border incursion into Kursk Region and later died in captivity. Last month, Russia handed over 909 Ukrainian bodies and received the remains of 41 soldiers in return. Russian war correspondent Aleksandr Kots wrote in Telegram on Friday that during the past three exchanges, many of the Ukrainian bodies belonged to servicemen who had been killed during the incursion into Kursk Region. On April 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the full liberation of Kursk Region, saying Ukraine had suffered heavy losses. According to Moscow's estimates, Kiev's casualties during the incursion amounted to more than 76,000. The first direct talks between Moscow and Kiev in over three years concluded on Friday at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, according to media reports. The negotiations focused on a possible ceasefire and prisoner exchange, according to Ukrainian delegation head Rustem Umerov, who said the sides had agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each. Russia's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky confirmed an exchange is being prepared.
