Ukraine repatriates 1,212 fallen soldiers as body exchange with Russia resumes

The remains include those killed in the Kursk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson directions.

The Coordination Headquarters said that the AFU will transfer the repatriated soldiers to designated state forensic institutions. The Ministry of Internal Affairs will work to establish the identities of the fallen as quickly as possible.

On June 7, the head of the Russian delegation in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, claimed that Ukraine had postponed a planned prisoner exchange. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry rejected the claim as false, accusing the Kremlin of attempting to manipulate the agreement after the fact in order to create artificial delays.

That same day, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters confirmed that the exchange of the bodies of the fallen had been postponed, with a new date yet to be determined.

Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Chief, later confirmed that the body exchange was scheduled for this week.