Ukraine obtained the bodies of 503 of its soldiers from Russia

Ukraine announced Friday that it had received from Russia the bodies of 503 of its soldiers killed in the fighting, a new illustration of the very high human cost of the war between these two countries.

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The exchange of remains of servicemen and prisoners of war is one of the last areas of cooperation between Moscow and kyiv since the launch of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The fourth official repatriation since October

“The remains of 503 fallen Ukrainian defenders have been repatriated to government-controlled territory,” the coordinating body for prisoners of war said.

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According to this source, 403 bodies were obtained in the eastern region of Donetsk, where the worst fighting is taking place, and the others in Lugansk (east), Zaporizhia (south) and in morgues in Russia.

This is the fourth repatriation of this type officially announced since October.

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43,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2022 according to Zelensky

In December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 370,000 wounded since the Russian invasion of 2022, a toll that could be underestimated, according to observers.

For its part, Russia, which does not communicate its losses in Ukraine, does not report the return of the remains of its soldiers either.

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The number of Russian soldiers killed was established at more than 82,000 by the independent media Mediazona and the BBC Russian service, which are based on the exploitation of public information, such as official communiqués, obituaries and announcements of deaths on social networks, as well as on the observation of graves in cemeteries.