Russia returned another 1,200 bodies of deceased Ukrainian citizens on Sunday, June 15, as part of the fourth stage of repatriation measures following the Istanbul negotiations.
The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) reported on Telegram:
“Another 1,200 bodies have been returned to Ukraine, which, according to the Russian side, belong to Ukrainian citizens, including servicemen.”
According to the report, law enforcement and expert institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will conduct examinations to identify the deceased.
During the second round of talks in Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia agreed on a “6,000-for-6,000” formula for the exchange of bodies. Repatriation measures were carried out on June 11 and 13, with an additional 1,200 bodies returned to Ukraine on Saturday.
Notably, Russian propaganda outlets claimed that Moscow handed over 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) personnel to Kyiv on June 13, while receiving none in return. A representative of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters dismissed the narrative, saying that “everything is proceeding according to the agreements.”
On June 11, Ukraine received the bodies of 1,212 fallen defenders, including soldiers who had fought in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
The previous transfer, in mid-May, saw the return of 909 bodies, many of whom were soldiers who had died in some of the war’s most intense battles. Some of these bodies had reportedly been held in morgues on Russian territory.
Before that, another exchange involving 909 bodies took place in mid-April, following a similar transfer on March 28.
In contrast to Ukraine’s regular reporting, Russia does not publicly acknowledge the return of its fallen soldiers and has not updated its official casualty figures since late 2022, when it claimed fewer than 6,000 Russian troops had been killed.
An independent investigation by Mediazona and BBC News Russian has since confirmed the identities of approximately 100,000 Russian soldiers killed, based on open-source data.
On June 12, Ukraine’s General Staff reported that Russia’s total combat losses since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, had surpassed 1,000,000 personnel, including both killed and wounded.
Of these, more than 628,000 losses occurred within the past year and a half alone. According to Ukraine’s data, in 2022, Russia lost 106,720 personnel, averaging 340 soldiers per day. By June 4, 2025, Russian losses had already exceeded 200,000 for the year, averaging 1,286 soldiers per day.