Kyiv says received back 909 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers

Kyiv said Friday it had received back the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers killed during battles with Russia, in the largest such repatriation in more than three years of war.

The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since the Kremlin mobilised its army in Ukraine in February 2022.

The repatriation announced on Friday is the largest of the war and underscores the high cost and intensity of fighting.


"The bodies of 909 fallen Defenders were returned to Ukraine," the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government agency, said in a statement on social media.

"We are grateful for the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross," it added a statement.

It said the remains had been returned from the Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, which the Kremlin claims are part of Russia.

Some of the bodies were returned from "morgues on the territory of the Russian Federation", it added, in a likely reference to soldiers killed in Kyiv's struggling offensive in the Russian region of Kursk.

Friday's repatriation is at least the seventh involving 500 or more Ukrainian bodies since last October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that more than 46,000 troops have been killed and more than 380,000 people have been wounded.

Russia does not announce the return of its bodies or give up-to-date information on the numbers of its troops killed fighting in Ukraine.

But officials cited by Russian media said that Russia had received the remains of just 43 of its soldiers in return.