Russia and Ukraine Exchange Bodies of Nearly 600 Fallen Soldiers

Russia and Ukraine said Friday they exchanged the bodies of 590 fallen soldiers in the latest publicly known swap between the two warring countries.
Moscow received the remains of 89 soldiers, the RBC news website reported, citing Russian lawmaker Shamsayil Saraliyev, who is a member of a parliamentary group dedicated to Russia’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government’s project on captured, missing and killed Russian soldiers said the bodies were recovered in southeastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as western Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv’s forces launched a cross-border incursion on Aug. 6.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has not commented on the exchange. Kyiv, meanwhile, repatriated 501 bodies, according to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Ukraine said 382 of the fallen soldiers had fought in the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, which Russian forces captured in February after one of the bloodiest battles since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The remaining bodies were recovered from other cities and regions claimed by Russia over the course of the war, including Bakhmut, Maryinka, Vuhledar, Zapirhzhiza and Luhansk.
Ukraine previously said it hopes to locate and identify more than 24,000 missing Ukrainian soldiers.
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