Ukraine on Sunday said it had received another transfer of 1,200 bodies from Russia, as part of an exchange agreement struck in Istanbul earlier this month.
“Another 1,200 bodies, which the Russian side claims belong to Ukrainian citizens, including military personnel, were returned to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war wrote on social media.
“In total, 4,812 bodies have been returned this week,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on Facebook.
“I am grateful to everyone involved in this humanitarian mission,” he said.
Ukraine has not said whether it has transferred any bodies to the Russian side.
The two sides agreed to conduct a large-scale prisoner and body exchange during their latest round of direct talks in Istanbul on June 2.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine typically discloses their military losses.
In a rare public estimate, President Volodymyr Zelensky told U.S. news outlet NBC earlier this year that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and some 380,000 wounded.
Russia has not announced its military deaths since September 2022, when it said fewer than 6,000 soldiers had been killed — a figure believed to be a vast undercount.
Several independent investigations using open sources, such as the publication of death announcements by local officials and family members, have reported massive death tolls for Moscow’s army.
The independent Russian outlet Mediazona and the BBC’s Russian service have identified the names of some 111,000 Russian soldiers killed in the conflict.
Additionally, Mediazona and another independent Russian outlet, Meduza, estimated that, as of Dec. 31, 2024, approximately 165,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war. This estimate is based on probate registry data.
