https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/07/europe/russia-ukraine-prisoner-swap-bodies-delay-intlRussia attempted to exchange the bodies of the first 1200 of 6000 agreed upon in the last peace talks, but nobody showed up on Ukraine's side
Russia says they had agreed upon a date and time and place and Ukraine unilaterally postponed, and Russia had refrigerated trucks filled with Ukrainian KIAs sitting idle at the spot
Ukraine says the two sides had not agreed on a date for the swap of bodies only wounded troops. In the end, no exchange occurred:
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“In strict accordance with the Istanbul agreements, the Russian side began a humanitarian operation to transfer more than 6,000 bodies of killed Ukrainian servicemen,” as well as badly wounded soldiers under the age of 25, Medinsky said Saturday afternoon on Telegram.
He claimed that 1,212 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers were at the exchange point, with the rest “on their way.” He also said that Russia gave Ukraine the first list of 640 prisoners of war for exchange, listed as “wounded, seriously ill and young people,” in order to start the swap.
In a video posted by Russia’s Defense Ministry on Telegram, two men wearing hazmat suits are seen opening the doors to the back of a truck parked on the side of a road. Inside the truck were dozens of sealed white bags, which the ministry said contained the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.
Medinsky said Russia’s Defense Ministry contact group was waiting at the border with Ukraine, but alleged that Kyiv had “unexpectedly postponed the transfer of bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war for an indefinite period” and had given “pretty weird reasons” for doing so.
Ukraine swiftly rejected the accusations, saying Medinsky’s claims “do not correspond to reality.” It said the exchange of prisoners of war and soldiers’ bodies were separate processes.
Well I guess this is a step up from Ukraine shooting down a prisoner exchange flight filled with its own troops.