MOSCOW: Russia has handed over the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers to Kyiv, a Moscow official said Thursday, with Ukraine returning the bodies of 35 Russians in exchange.
The two sides regularly exchange the remains of troops killed in combat, one of the few areas of cooperation.
“The bodies of 1,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers were given to Ukraine. Russia was given the bodies of 35 dead Russian fighters,” Moscow’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on social media.
He posted a photo showing men in white overalls and blue gloves lifting a white body bag from the back of a refrigerated truck.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed in the four-year war, triggered when Moscow launched its full-scale offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
Negotiators from both countries were in Geneva on Thursday for separate talks with US officials, part of a fraught negotiation process being pushed by President Donald Trump in a bid to end the fighting.