Putin announces Russia ready to return 3,000 more bodies in prisoner swap
Russians are ready to continue exchanging the bodies of the fallen with Ukraine (Illustrative photo: Getty Images)
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s readiness to return another 3,000 bodies of fallen soldiers to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange, according to remarks made during a press conference at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
According to Putin, the peace talks in Istanbul make sense and have a positive outcome.
“We have already agreed on the exchange of 1,200 prisoners. We have released 500 so far — received back 400, and I believe we will get everyone we are supposed to receive. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to talk about this. We have returned more than 6,000 bodies of fallen Ukrainian servicemen, while receiving only 57 in return. We are now ready to hand over another 3,000. This is still a positive result of the talks in Istanbul,” the Russian leader said.
The second round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul on June 2.
During the meeting, the delegations discussed the possibility of a ceasefire. They also talked about preparations for a new exchange of prisoners of war.
In particular, the parties agreed on a new exchange of certain categories of prisoners, as well as a mutual exchange of bodies of fallen soldiers on the front lines based on a 6,000-for-6,000 formula.
The first stage of the prisoner exchange took place on June 9. The second and third rounds followed on June 11 and 13.
On June 14, the parties carried out the fourth prisoner exchange.
As part of these exchanges, the bodies of 3,600 fallen soldiers have been returned to Ukraine.
