•Relatives friends and fellow military members toss handfuls of soil over the coffin of late Ukrainian soldier Nataliia Ilnytska during her funeral ceremony yesterday
Russia today returned the bodies of what it said were 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, five of whom died while in captivity, a Ukrainian government agency said.
Ukraine returned the bodies of 19 Russian soldiers in exchange, a Russian official said.
Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed on both sides since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022, though neither side regularly publishes data on their own casualties, reports AFP.
The exchange of prisoners of war and repatriation of war dead has been one of the few areas of cooperation between the two countries since the war began.
The two sides have intensified these efforts in recent months during talks in Istanbul.
“According to the Russian side, 1,000 bodies belonging to Ukrainian military personnel have been returned to Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement on Telegram.
“Unfortunately, among those repatriated are the bodies of five Ukrainian servicemen who died in captivity,” it added.
It said law enforcement would begin the process of identifying the soldiers.
The exchange was carried out in accordance with agreements reached between the two sides in Istanbul, Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said.
Kyiv initially said the two had agreed to “exchange” the bodies of 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers for as many Russians, though Moscow has always presented the deal as a unilateral decision to repatriate Ukrainians.
