Ukraine Repatriates Bodies of Over 1,200 Fallen Soldiers, Including Fighters From Kursk

The bodies of 1,212 fallen Ukrainian defenders have been returned to Ukraine, including soldiers who fought in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) reported on Telegram that among the returned are defenders who died in:

• Kursk Oblast (Russia)

• Kharkiv region

• Luhansk region

• Donetsk region

• Zaporizhzhia region

• Kherson region

The return was made possible through the joint efforts of the Coordination Headquarters, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada, the Secretariat of the Commissioner for Persons Missing in Special Circumstances, the State Emergency Service, and other Ukrainian security and defense agencies.

The Coordination Headquarters also added the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The bodies will initially be transferred to law enforcement and forensic medical experts to confirm the identities of the fallen.

In early June, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to exchange all prisoners of war who are seriously wounded and under the age of 25, as well as to return the bodies of 6,000 fallen soldiers each, according to Ukrainian officials.

The agreement followed peace talks held in Turkey, where Ukrainian and Russian delegations met for the second time. The discussions focused on POW exchanges, the return of deported Ukrainian children, and the framework for a potential ceasefire.

Other Topics of Interest

Ukraine to Deliver Record 1,500 Motorcycles to Frontline Troops in 2026

Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency on Wednesday signed a contract for 1,500 motorcycles for the Armed Forces, three times last year’s total motorbike buy. The contract was awarded through a competitive tender process that officials say saved nearly Hr.12 million that can now be reallocated to additional military needs.

Ukraine regularly conducts exchanges of fallen soldiers with Russia. The most recent transfer, involving the return of 909 bodies, took place in mid-May.

The fallen soldiers included those who died in some of the most intense battles of the war, including in Kurakhove, Pokrovsk, Bakhmut, Vuhledar, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, and Kharkiv. Some of the bodies had also been held in morgues on Russian territory.

A previous exchange of 909 bodies took place in mid-April. That repatriation marked at least the eighth time since October that Ukraine had recovered 500 or more fallen soldiers in a single transfer. A similar exchange also took place on March 28.

Unlike Ukraine, Russia does not publicly report the return of its fallen soldiers and has not updated its official casualty figures since the fall of 2022, when it claimed fewer than 6,000 Russian troops had been killed.

In mid-February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC News that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, with around 380,000 wounded.

Meanwhile, an ongoing investigation by Mediazona and BBC News Russian has verified the identities of approximately 100,000 Russian soldiers killed in the war, based on open-source data.