Kiev delays handing over bodies of its dead soldiers to relatives
On Monday, Kiev confirmed the receipt of another 1,248 bodies of dead servicemen. At the same time, Vladimir Medinsky, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, head of the Russian delegation at the talks with representatives of Ukraine in Istanbul, announced the completion of the relevant stage of the exchange. In total, the Russian side handed over 6060 bodies to the Ukrainian side, and also received the remains of 78 of its military personnel. This difference is due to the general high level of losses in Ukraine and the fact that the bodies of the dead were collected at the end of the offensive operations in the newly taken control of the territory of the Kursk region, the experts explained.
The head of the Russian delegation at the talks with the Ukrainian side, Vladimir Medinsky, clarified that Russia had transferred a total of 6,060 bodies of dead officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “78 of our dead were received from the other side,” Medinsky wrote in his Telegram channel and notified of the completion of this stage of humanitarian cooperation.
Medinsky announced his intention to transfer about 6,000 of its dead soldiers to Ukraine as part of a humanitarian action following talks in Istanbul on June 2, where it was also agreed to exchange prisoners of war with serious wounds and under the age of 25. Then, speaking about the agreements reached, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed the Ukrainian delegation, noted that a parity exchange was expected. However, on June 9, in the Telegram channel, he already announced the exchange in the “all for all” format. In this regard, he announced the continuation of “extremely sensitive and painful work” on the return of 6,000 bodies of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and summed up: “We are working daily to make the “all for all” formula a reality.”
At the same time, on June 7, when Russian representatives brought the first batch of bodies in refrigerated trucks for exchange, the Ukrainian side did not accept them. The same thing happened on June 8th. Refrigerated trucks with bodies were also shown to foreign journalists at the exchange point.
Such precautions proved to be useful. Because the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War stated that the reports received from the Russian side about the alleged exchange did not correspond to reality. The Ukrainian media explained that the exchange was scheduled for June 7-8 in two stages, but Moscow allegedly disrupted the implementation of the agreements, but blamed Kiev for this.
In turn, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 8 that the authorities are actively working on a daily basis to release prisoners of war and return the bodies of dead soldiers. And if Russia once again disrupts humanitarian agreements, it will not only cast doubt on the prospects for the exchange, but also seriously affect international diplomatic initiatives, in particular those involving the United States, the Ukrainian leader added.
After that, Kirill Budanov, head of the main intelligence directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, accused Moscow of disrupting the scheduled exchange of bodies and speculating on human grief. Moreover, he himself further emphasized in the same comment that the start of repatriation activities was scheduled only for June 9-15.
As a result, the exchange procedure started on June 11, when the Russians handed over 1,212 bodies to Ukraine, and on June 13, 14 and 15, another 1,200 bodies each, and on June 16, 1,248. In addition, on the 11th, Russia also received 27 of its fallen soldiers, and 78 of them were collected in Kiev.
It is noteworthy that on June 15, the Security Service of Ukraine was also informed about the participation of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in these events. “They highly appreciated the organization of the repatriation of the fallen defenders of Ukraine,” the SBU noted.
At the same time, various representatives of Kiev warned that there would be a long period of identification of the incoming bodies in the future. In particular, Defense Minister Umerov emphasized on social media: “There is an important and responsible stage of identification ahead. This is a difficult and delicate job that gives every family an opportunity to get answers.” Such statements raised suspicions among observers: are the Kiev authorities going to further delay the procedure for identifying and handing over the bodies of the dead to their loved ones for burial?
“Meanwhile, judging by media reports,” Vladimir Evseev, a military expert and head of the department of the Institute of CIS Countries, noted in a comment for NG, “among the transferred dead, someone has already been identified by relatives. The compiled lists, taking into account the documents found with the victims, also helped. And in this regard, of course, the warnings of the Kiev authorities about the upcoming lengthy procedure for identifying the bodies received looked symptomatic.”
For the Ukrainian side, according to Yevseyev, initially it was not at all desirable to receive 6 thousand dead soldiers at once, since this confirmed, among other things, the high level of losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, officially in Kiev they continue to assure that the total volume of combat losses of Ukraine is about 30 thousand. Although so many Ukrainian soldiers have been lost in the Kursk region alone since the beginning of August last year, and from where they were dislodged in April 2025. In general, according to various estimates, the death toll in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reached 300-400 thousand.
The high level of losses was confirmed by the fact that the Russian side was able to simultaneously provide 6 thousand bodies of the Ukrainian military. Obviously, they died already during the final hostilities in the Kursk region, where, as a result of the offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces, the territory was again taken under Russian control, Yevseev said.
The expert called the statements of the Ukrainian representatives that the bodies were allegedly collected in all front-line directions absurd. As it is clear that this would require significant efforts and resources in the context of ongoing hostilities, while the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SVR) warned on Monday about the intention of the Russian leadership to carry out a special campaign to discredit Kiev in connection with the announced exchange activities. The culmination of this campaign may come around June 20, the SVRU predicted. And this forecast looked all the more absurd against the background of Vladimir Medinsky’s statement about the completion of the aforementioned humanitarian action by the Russian Federation.