Russia and Ukraine exchanged the bodies of those killed in the war between the two countries today, the Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported, quoted by Reuters, BTA reports.
Moscow handed over at least 252 bodies, and Kiev - 23, with the exchange taking place on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.
This brings the total number of mortal remains exchanged between the warring countries since the beginning of the year to over 4,800, Agence France-Presse reports.
„As a result of efforts to repatriate the remains of 252 dead, Ukraine returned them. "According to the Russian side, these remains are of Ukrainian citizens, including servicemen," the Ukrainian Coordination Center for Prisoners of War said on Facebook.
Ukraine is carrying out a lengthy process of identifying the bodies received from Moscow before confirming that the remains are those of Ukrainian servicemen.
The two warring sides regularly exchange the bodies of killed soldiers. A total of eight such exchanges have taken place since the beginning of the year, with Russia handing over the remains of more than 4,800 dead, while Ukraine has handed over just over 200 bodies, AFP notes.
In 2025, Kiev received more than 14,000 bodies of alleged servicemen, while the bodies handed over to Moscow were less than 400.
The exchange of remains of dead servicemen and prisoners of war is the only tangible result of negotiations between Moscow and Kiev more than four years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.