Kyiv said it had secured the return of 1,000 fallen troops on Tuesday.
However, Kyiv also said that five of the bodies belong to soldiers captured by Moscow as prisoners of war (POWs), accusing Moscow of failing to uphold earlier exchange agreements.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, an agency tasked with POW matters created shortly after Moscow’s 2022 invasion, announced the repatriation on Tuesday.
According to the agency, the 1,000 troops consist of those who died fighting in the Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Luhansk and Kursk sectors.
The agency said the repatriation is part of earlier agreements reached with Moscow, presumably during the Istanbul talks.
In its Tuesday update, the agency also tacitly expressed doubts about the identity of the bodies returned – a remark based on earlier incidents in which 20 dead Russian troops were returned as Ukrainian.
“A thousand bodies were returned to Ukraine, which, according to the Russian side, belong to Ukrainian servicemen,” the update says.
Of the five Ukrainian troops who died in Russian captivity, the agency said they were on the exchange list of seriously ill and wounded POWs from the second Istanbul talks on June 2, with their deaths attributed to delays by Moscow.
“The Russian side continues to delay and does not fulfill its obligations. Ukraine insists on the immediate release of all seriously ill and seriously wounded prisoners and is fighting for the return of all Ukrainian citizens,” the update says.
The agency thanked other institutions – including the International Committee of the Red Cross – for their assistance in repatriating the bodies, adding that the identification process will soon begin.
“In the near future, law enforcement investigators, together with expert institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, will carry out all necessary examinations and identify the repatriated bodies,” the update adds.