Ukraine returns bodies of 502 fallen soldiers
Photo: Ukraine returned the bodies of 502 fallen defenders (Getty Images)
Ukraine has returned the bodies of 502 servicemen who died in the war, participating in combat operations on various fronts, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Ukraine managed to bring back the fallen defenders to the controlled territory, including:
- 397 soldiers from the Donetsk direction;
- 24 from the Luhansk direction;
- 64 from the Zaporizhzhia direction;
- 17 fallen soldiers returned from morgues in Russia.
The return of the bodies was coordinated by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Central Directorate for Civil-Military Cooperation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff, the Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Office of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for Missing Persons in Special Circumstances, the State Emergency Service, and other structures of Ukraine’s security and defense sector.
The bodies of the fallen soldiers will first be handed over to law enforcement agencies and forensic experts. This procedure is necessary to establish the identities of the deceased.
Prisoner exchanges
Since the start of the full-scale war, Ukraine and Russia have conducted 58 prisoner exchanges. More than 3,500 Ukrainians have been freed from Russian captivity.
The latest exchange took place on the night of October 19. 95 Ukrainian soldiers returned home.
Earlier, Ukraine announced its readiness for an all-for-all exchange formula, which Russia has ignored.
