Kyiv:
Kiev announced on Friday that Russian authorities had returned more than 500 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in fighting, most of them in eastern Donetsk.
Russia and Ukraine have been exchanging bodies and prisoners since the first months of the conflict, and casualties on both sides are estimated to be high.
“As a result of the repatriation operation, the bodies of 502 garrison soldiers killed in action were returned to areas controlled by the Ukrainian government,” the Kiev-based Coordination Headquarters for Prisoner of War treatment announced on social media.
The center said 397 of the bodies had been returned from the Donetsk region, where fighting has been the most intense.
It was announced that 24 people were returned from the eastern Lugansk region, 64 from the southern Zaporizhzhya region, and 17 from morgues on Russian territory.
The Kiev center said it was “grateful for the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross.”
The bodies will be subjected to forensic examinations and “we will work with specialized agencies to identify the deceased as soon as possible.”
Russia has not announced that it will return the bodies.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
