Bodies of 501 Dead Soldiers Repatriated by Russia

Russia has repatriated the bodies of 501 Ukrainian soldiers killed in clashes with Russian forces, mostly in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv authorities said today.

“Thanks to the repatriation measures, 501 bodies of fallen Ukrainian defenders have been returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government agency, said on Telegram.

This is one of the largest repatriations of Ukrainian military remains since the beginning of the war.

According to the coordination center, most of them were brought from the Donetsk region, specifically from the area of ​​Avdiivka, a mining town from which 382 bodies were taken, and whose capture in February started a Russian advance that is still ongoing.

The agency praised the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross and stressed that several state bodies and the army helped coordinate the return of the remains.

Law enforcement and forensic experts will now identify the victims, after which the bodies will be handed over to their next of kin, the Ukrainian coordination center said.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, arguing that it wanted to protect pro-Russian separatist minorities in the east and "denazify" the neighboring country, which has been independent since 1991 - after the breakup of the former Soviet Union - and which has been moving away from Moscow's sphere of influence and closer to Europe and the West.

The war in Ukraine has already left tens of thousands dead on both sides, and recent months have been marked by large-scale Russian air strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, while Kyiv's forces have targeted targets in Russian territory close to the border and in the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014.

Now in the third year of war, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have struggled with a shortage of soldiers and weapons and ammunition, despite repeated promises of aid from Western allies, which have now begun to materialize.

Negotiations between the two sides have been completely deadlocked since spring 2022, with Moscow continuing to demand that Ukraine accept the annexation of part of its territory, and rejecting negotiations as long as Ukrainian forces control the Russian Kursk region, partially occupied in August.