Russia returns soldiers' bodies to Kiev, POW swap set for Thursday

MOSCOW

Russia on Wednesday returned the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers who died fighting Moscow's invasion, part of an agreement between the two sides reached at peace talks last week.

Moscow also said the next phase of a large-scale exchange of captured soldiers would take place on Thursday.

At talks in Istanbul last week the two sides agreed to each free more than 1,000 prisoners of war and return the bodies of killed fighters.

Moscow spent days accusing Kiev of not wanting to collect the bodies that it alleged had been waiting in refrigerated trucks near the border since Saturday.

On Wednesday, a Ukrainian government agency announced that "the bodies of 1,212 fallen defenders were returned to Ukraine".

Russia's top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, also confirmed the handover and said Russia had "received the remains of 27 Russian soldiers."

Ukraine did not say how many bodies it returned to Russia.

"Tomorrow, we will begin urgent 'sanitary exchanges' of severely wounded prisoners," Medinsky added.

Previous exchanges took place on Monday and Tuesday involving wounded soldiers and those under the age of 25 -- though neither side said how many had been freed.

Among the bodies returned on Wednesday, were the remains of Ukrainian soldiers killed fighting in the Kharkiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, Kiev said, as well as those killed during Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Ukraine said its experts "will identify the deceased as soon as possible".

Russia said it would unilaterally hand over the bodies of 6,000 killed Ukrainian soldiers. Kiev said it would be an "exchange".

The exchanges are the only concrete outcome from two rounds of peace talks in Istanbul, at which Russia rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire and demanded Ukraine give up large swathes of territory and its bid to join NATO.