Russia and Ukraine exchange bodies of dead soldiers: 501 for 89

Russia and Ukraine conducted another exchanges of the bodies of fallen servicemen. This time, Ukraine received 501 bodies, whereas Russia received 89 in return.

Photo: Сайт президента Украины is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

Shamsail Saraliev, a representative of the parliamentary coordination group on military operation issues, confirmed the exchange without providing any other details of it.

Earlier, headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war of Ukraine announced the return of the bodies.

"We managed to return (…) the bodies of servicemen killed in Avdiivka, Bakhmut, Maryinsk, Vuhledar, Zaporizhia and Luhansk directions," headquarters representatives said.

• In August 2024, Moscow received 38 bodies of Russian soldiers in exchange for 250 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.
• In May, Kyiv received 212 bodies of its soldiers and delivered the bodies of 45 Russian servicemen to Moscow.

Such a considerable difference in the number of bodies indicates significant losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The real situation on the front is even worse as the Russian troops regularly use high-explosive aviation bombs to attack the positions of the Ukrainian military.

According to Western estimates, since the beginning of the special military operation, the losses of the Ukrainian army amounted to about 1.8 million people, of which about 780,000 died. From June to mid-October, monthly losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fluctuateв from 55 to 65 thousand people.

Such high losses are unacceptable, and no army can bear them for a long time. This can only accentuate tremendous demographic problems in Ukraine where the population has fallen below 30 million and continues to decline.