Kyiv/Moscow — Russia on Thursday transferred the remains of 1,000 people it said were Ukrainian soldiers killed in combat, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War announced. Moscow later confirmed the swap, saying it had received 31 bodies from Ukraine.
“Repatriation measures took place today,” Ukraine’s POW coordination body said on social media, adding that law enforcement and forensic teams will begin identification procedures. The agency thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross for supporting the exchange.
While front-line fighting remains intense, exchanges of prisoners and war dead have persisted as one of the few channels of coordination between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine also reported large-scale returns of remains in July, August and September—each involving about 1,000 bodies—underscoring the war’s heavy toll.
Neither side regularly discloses its own battlefield losses. In February, President Volodymyr Zelensky told U.S. media Ukraine had lost more than 46,000 soldiers, with tens of thousands still missing in action. Independent counts using open-source records by the BBC and Russian outlet Mediazona have documented more than 135,000 Russian soldiers killed, while noting the true figure is likely higher.
The newly repatriated remains will be examined and, where possible, identified and returned to families for burial, Ukrainian officials said. Identifications often rely on DNA testing, personal effects, and military records, a process that can take weeks or months.
The exchange follows escalating clashes along multiple sectors of the front, where both armies report incremental gains but no strategic breakthrough. Despite the limited nature of such repatriations, humanitarian groups say they provide rare moments of dignity for the dead and a measure of closure for families on both sides.
