Russia and Ukraine Exchange Remains of 275 Fallen Soldiers
Russia handed over 252 bodies to Ukraine and received 23 in return at a border crossing in Belarus, one of the few remaining channels of direct contact between the two sides.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged the remains of 275 soldiers killed in the war on Thursday, in a repatriation conducted at the Novaya Guta border crossing point in Belarus.
Moscow handed over 252 bodies to the Ukrainian authorities, while Ukraine returned 23. Shamsail Saraliyev, a State Duma lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party and a member of a parliamentary group dedicated to the conflict, confirmed the exchange to the RBC news outlet. Belarus's state news agency, Belta, published photographs of the proceedings and said the country was continuing its humanitarian mission.
The Ukrainian military confirmed the swap and credited its search teams for continuing their work despite the threat of drone strikes, remote mining and enemy shelling. Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said law enforcement agencies would work to identify the 252 returned bodies, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross had assisted in the exchange.
Repatriations of the dead and exchanges of prisoners of war remain among the few channels of direct communication between Russia and Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion in 2022. The previous exchange of bodies took place on 13 August, when Russia received 24 of its fallen soldiers and Ukraine received 261.