Russia sends 210 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to Kiev

Russia sends 210 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to Kiev

Russia has returned the bodies of 210 Ukrainian servicemen who died in fighting for Mariupol. Ukraine’s military intelligence service reported this on Tuesday evening Twitter, a post also shared by the Russian state news agency TASS. Most of them are said to have died in the battle of the Azovstal steel factory.

The bodies to the Ukrainian capital Kiev, writes AP news agency based on the Ukrainian Azov regiment. There they are identified with DNA testing. On Saturday, Ukraine announced an exchange of 320 bodies with Russia, 160 per side, but it is not clear whether Tuesday night’s 210 bodies are among those.

The recovery of the bodies continues, the Ukrainian intelligence service writes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN last month that 2,500 to 3,000 military personnel from his country have died. He also claimed that up to 20,000 Russian soldiers were killed. TASS spoke of 1,351 Russian war dead at the end of March. NRC cannot verify these numbers.

Also read: More and more deaths in Ukraine, but no one knows exactly how many