Ukraine Receives 1,200 More Bodies From Russia Under Istanbul Exchange Accord
Russia has handed over bodies of 1,200 people who died during the Ukraine war to Kyiv. Image courtesy: RNA
Ukraine said on Sunday (June 15) that Russia had transferred 1,200 more bodies, believed to be those of Ukrainian citizens and soldiers, as part of an ongoing exchange agreement brokered earlier this month in Istanbul.
This latest handover brings the total number of bodies returned to Ukraine this week to 4,812, according to Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov. The agreement is one of the largest publicly acknowledged body recovery efforts in the war so far.
While Russia has not commented on any reciprocal transfers, the effort marks a rare example of humanitarian cooperation between the two countries amid an otherwise grinding and bloody war.
What was the Istanbul agreement for Ukraine-Russia body exchange?
The transfer of 1,200 bodies on Sunday is part of an agreement finalised during direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul earlier this month. The deal included provisions for both prisoner and body exchanges. While prisoner swaps between the two sides have occurred intermittently, this large-scale return of war dead is unusual.
Such exchanges, though humanitarian in nature, also serve as important morale and accountability measures for the armed forces of both nations. For Ukraine, the recovery of fallen soldiers allows for proper identification, dignified burial, and closure for families.
What is the death toll in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?
Ukraine does not routinely publish official casualty figures, but in a rare public disclosure earlier this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and around 380,000 wounded since the war began in 2022.
Russia last released an official death toll in September 2022, claiming fewer than 6,000 soldiers had died—a figure widely considered implausible. Independent outlets like Mediazona and BBC Russian have used open-source verification methods to identify at least 111,000 named Russian soldiers killed.
As of now, Ukrainian officials have not said whether they have transferred any Russian bodies back to Moscow as part of the Istanbul agreement. The statement issued by Ukraine’s Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War focused only on incoming remains.
