Moscow (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – On Sunday, Russia delivered another 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in the war to Ukraine, according to Russian state news agencies. They reported that Russia had not received a single Russian corpse in return.
Both TASS and RIA, Russian state news agencies, reported the handover, citing an anonymous source. This marks the fourth transfer of soldiers’ remains in the past week, following an agreement between Russia and Ukraine that was reached during talks in Istanbul earlier this month.
How many exchanges have occurred between both sides?
The remains of 27 Russian troops and 1,212 Ukrainian military personnel have been sent to Kyiv by Moscow, according to a statement made earlier by Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, who is in charge of the nation’s team in negotiations with Ukraine.
In addition to exchanging up to 6,000 corpses, Kyiv and Moscow also agreed to swap POWs under 25 and those who were gravely injured or ill.
Russia claims to have returned the bodies of nearly 5,000 Ukrainian service members to Ukraine, but has only reported receiving 27 Russian servicemen in return. Ukraine and Russia have completed three exchanges of prisoners of war, but the exact numbers have not been made public.
On Monday, June 9, the first group of Russian military men under 25 returned to Russia, according to TASS. On June 10, a plane carrying the second contingent of troops touched down in Russia. They will now all get therapy and rehabilitation. Russia has always given Ukraine the same number of POWs.
What was significant about the May 2025 exchange?
In the last week of May 2025, the first significant prisoner exchange was completed between Russia and Ukraine as part of recent peace talks. The two sides had been able to initiate some agreements through direct negotiations in Istanbul, along with some preliminary discussions in Jerusalem, where the two sides agreed on the number of prisoners that would be exchanged, as well as some legal provisions concerning prisoners of war.
The initial exchange, referred to as “the big swap,” included the exchange of approximately 390 soldiers and civilians from either side. This is the biggest swap since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. The focus of most of the exchanged prisoners were either wounded, severely injured, or under the age of 25 years. Many of the Ukrainian detainees had been held captive in Russia for more than three years and were Mariupol defenders.
