Interior Ministry: Ukraine sends back remains of Russian soldiers received in repatriation deal
Archive photo: Ukraine has already returned the bodies of three Russian soldiers to Russia (t.me/Koord_shtab)
Three bodies of Russian soldiers have already been returned to Russia. The aggressor handed them over to Ukraine during repatriation in 2025, states Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko, during a briefing.
According to Klymenko, the bodies are handed over to the Russians only after a 100% DNA match is confirmed. Thus, three bodies were returned to Russia because they were fully identified.
When asked by an RBC-Ukraine correspondent whether Russia had previously used the practice of planting bodies of "their own" during repatriations, the Minister of Internal Affairs said he could speak only about the year 2025, as there are confirmed facts.
"We are now talking about the bodies we examined, the ones that have been in our possession specifically since 2025. It’s a sensitive topic, and we didn’t pay much attention to it earlier. We did our job professionally and set the bodies aside for exchange. However, when Russia launched an information attack against us, we issued an official public statement about our work so that the aggressor state would understand what it must be held accountable for," the minister emphasized.
Prisoner exchange
During the second round of negotiations in Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia agreed to carry out the repatriation of fallen soldiers on a 6000 for 6000 basis. The exchanges took place in several stages — on June 11, 13, 14, and 15.
The first batch of bodies was handed over on June 11, when Ukraine received the remains of 1,212 of its defenders who had died in the east and south of the country, as well as in Russia’s Kursk region.
On June 13, Ukraine received another 1,200 bodies of the fallen, most of whom were service members. The next stages of the exchange took place on June 14 and 15, with another 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian citizens, including soldiers, returned on each of those days.
According to Maksym Tsyntskiridze, First Deputy Head of the National Police, there were instances during the identification process when remains of several different individuals were found in a single body bag sent by Russia as part of the repatriation.
Read more about this in the material by RBC-Ukraine.
