Death Toll Exchange: Russia and Ukraine Swap Nearly 1,000 Fallen Soldiers in Recent Repatriation Event

Russia and Ukraine announced on Friday that they have conducted an exchange of the remains of 950 soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict, marking the second such transaction in less than a month.

According to Shamsail Saraliyev, a lawmaker in the State Duma, Russia received the remains of 41 soldiers. In contrast, Ukraine brought back the bodies of 909 of its servicemen, as reported by the government’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

The Ukrainian soldiers are believed to have died on the front lines across several regions, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv, as well as in the northeastern Sumy area, where Ukraine alleges that Russian forces are planning a new offensive.

Exchanges of prisoners of war and the remains of deceased soldiers have persisted as one of the limited avenues for cooperation between the two nations since Russia commenced its large-scale invasion of Ukraine over three years ago.

This recent swap follows a previous exchange on March 28, where 909 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers were traded for 43 Russian soldiers. It is the eighth exchange that has involved the remains of 500 or more Ukrainian soldiers since October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in an interview with CBS News on Sunday that approximately 100,000 Ukrainian troops have died since February 2022. In contrast, Russia has not revised its official casualty figures since the fall of 2022, when it reported fewer than 6,000 combat fatalities.

An independent analysis by Mediazona and BBC News Russia has identified about 100,000 fallen Russian soldiers based on publicly accessible information.

AFP contributed to this report.