In an article on Telegram, Mr. Vladimir Medinsky announced that Russia had returned the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict. In return, Moscow only received the bodies of its 19 soldiers from Kiev.
The Russian presidential adviser stressed that the bodies returned to Ukraine were in accordance with the Istanbul agreements.
The General Department of the Ukrainian War Invalids Treatment Coordination also confirmed that the bodies of 1,000 soldiers had been received.
With an exchange rate of about 2/100, observers believe that Russia has made a humane move to preserve most of the soldiers' bodies for Ukraine. In contrast, Kiev's return of only 19 bodies to Moscow has raised questions about how it handles the enemy's soldiers' deaths.
The exchange took place after a summit on August 15 between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart in Alaska (USA) and President Donald Trump's meetings in Washington on August 18 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western European leaders.
The focus of the meetings was to find a feasible solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Moscow had previously offered to return the bodies of more than 6,000 Kiev soldiers as a humanitarian gesture in the second round of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul (Türkiye) in early June.
The bodies were transferred to Ukraine in the following weeks, while Russia only received a small number, including 79 bodies of its fallen soldiers.
President Putin then continued to announce that Moscow was ready to return 3,000 more bodies to Kiev despite the large gap between the two sides.
