Ukraine has repatriated 1,000 bodies that Russia claims belong to Ukrainian service members, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Wednesday.
The bodies were handed over as part of a repatriation operation carried out in cooperation with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Interior Ministry, the Office of the Ombudsman, and other security and defense institutions.
Ukrainian officials said law enforcement investigators, together with Interior Ministry experts, will conduct examinations and identification procedures in the coming days
The Coordination Headquarters expressed gratitude to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its assistance, and separately thanked the Ukrainian military personnel who transported the bodies to specialized state facilities and coordinated their transfer to law enforcement and forensic experts.
One of the few concrete outcomes of the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks in Istanbul between May and July was the agreement on returning fallen soldiers and exchanging prisoners of war.