Russia and Ukraine exchanged the bodies of more than 550 soldiers killed fighting in the war, a senior Russian lawmaker said Thursday.
Shamsail Saraliyev, a State Duma lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party and member of a parliamentary group dedicated to the conflict, said Ukraine received 522 bodies of its soldiers while 33 were returned to Russia.
Ukraine later confirmed the exchange.
Last month, authorities in Kyiv said Russia had returned 528 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers, while Russian media reported that Ukraine had returned 41 fallen Russian servicemen.
That prior exchange was conducted alongside a POW swap mediated by the United Arab Emirates. Later in June, the two sides carried out an additional prisoner exchange, also with UAE involvement.
The return of fallen service members and the exchange of prisoners of war have been among the very few areas of humanitarian cooperation between Russia and Ukraine since the 2022 invasion.
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