Russia has handed over the bodies of over 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers who were killed in the war. Kremlin official Vladimir Medinsky confirmed the delivery Wednesday after the transfer was first announced by Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Kiev stated that the bodies were recovered from the front lines in Russia’s Kursk, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, as well as Ukraine’s Kharkiv Region. No names were released, and no further details were given about the identities of the soldiers.

Medinsky, who serves as Moscow’s chief negotiator in talks with Kiev, said Russia received the remains of 27 of its own troops. “Now they can be buried in a Christian manner,” he said in a statement on Telegram. He added that the two sides had agreed to begin “urgent sanitary exchanges” involving severely wounded prisoners of war. “Russia does not abandon its own people,” Medinsky said, according to a report by RT. 

Moscow has previously stated it is prepared to return the remains of more than 6,000 Ukrainian troops, but has accused Kiev of delaying acceptance.

Moscow decided to return the bodies during talks with Kiev in Istanbul earlier this month. However, while Russia completed the delivery of the bodies to the designated exchange areas, Ukraine rescheduled the meeting without prior notice, and their representatives were nowhere to be found, Medinsky said at the time. –RT

Russian Lieutenant General Aleksandr Zorin, who was part of Moscow’s negotiating team, signaled that the country was fully ready to honor the agreement, saying, “It is a purely humanitarian action. Not the first of such kind and, regrettably, not the last one.”

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Russia and Ukraine have already agreed to conduct several prisoner-of-war swaps as part of the Istanbul peace process.

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