Russia handed over the bodies of a thousand killed Ukrainian soldiers to Ukraine today, the Ukrainian service responsible for prisoners of war announced, quoted by Agence France-Presse, quoted by BTA.
"Today there were handover operations and a thousand bodies were handed over", the service wrote on the "Telegram" communication application, welcoming the assistance provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Now forensic doctors and investigators, under the leadership of the Ukrainian prosecutor's office, are to identify the remains.
The Russian media company RBC reported that in exchange for the handed over bodies, Russia received the bodies of 31 of its killed soldiers, Reuters notes.
In the middle of last month, Kiev announced that has received a thousand bodies, as it did in July and August - a sign of the intensification of fighting on the front line in eastern Ukraine.
In addition, at the beginning of the month, Moscow and Kiev exchanged 185 prisoners of war.
The exchange of bodies of killed soldiers and prisoners of war is the only result of the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, AFP notes.
In February this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told American television that his country had already lost over 46 thousand soldiers, and tens of thousands were considered missing or held captive.
The BBC and the independent media outlet "Mediazona", citing open access data, claim that over three and a half years of war they have registered over 135,000 killed Russian soldiers, believing that the real number is probably higher, AFP points out.