Moscow and Kyiv continue to trade blame over alleged repatriation of dead Russian soldiers

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of transferring the remains of its own and foreign citizens during the repatriation exchanges taking place over the last three weeks, Ukrainian news outlet RBC Ukraine reported on Saturday.

Zelensky accused Russia of handing over at least 20 individuals with passports of foreign countries, including Russia and Israel, instead of fallen Ukrainian servicemen, in violation of the repatriation agreement signed in Istanbul on 2 June.

“This means that they themselves cannot even check who they are sending, since this is a large number of people. An examination is needed. And I don’t know how much time it will take, to be honest,” the Ukrainian president said at a press briefing on Saturday.

“For example, there is an Israeli mercenary who fought on their side. A citizen of Israel. With Israeli documents. But they told us these were only Ukrainians and only military personnel. But that is a lie, which has already been documented," he added.

On 2 June, after concluding the second round of negotiations in Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia agreed to each repatriate the remains of 6,000 servicemen who had died in Ukraine, as well as a major prisoner-of-war exchange.

Since then, several repatriation exchanges have taken place throughout June, with the last transferral of remains taking place on 15 June. According to Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, Kyiv has now received over 6,000 bodies from Moscow, while Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Russia’s delegation to Istanbul, says Russia has only received 78.

However, shortly after the transferrals were completed, Ukrainian authorities said that Moscow had handed over the remains of both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, in an apparent attempt to raise the number of bodies it transferred.

On Friday, Medinsky dismissed Ukraine’s allegations as attempts to promote a false narrative “in order to sway public opinion”, comparing them to the “manipulations” of chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Medinsky also accused Ukraine of trying to pass off older corpses as recently exchanged ones and of pairing them with Soviet-era military IDs.