KYIV
\nKyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian troops killed in battle with Russian forces, in one of the largest repatriations since Russia invaded.
\nThe exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since the Kremlin mobilized its army in Ukraine in February 2022.
\nThe repatriation announced by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a Ukrainian state agency, is the largest in months and underscores the high cost and intensity of fighting ahead of the war\u2019s three-year anniversary.
\n\u201cThe bodies of 757 fallen defenders were returned to Ukraine,\u201d the Coordination Headquarters said in a post on social media.
\nIt specified that 451 of the bodies were returned from the \u201cDonetsk direction,\u201d probably a reference to the battle for the mining and transport hub of Pokrovsk.
\nThe city that once had around 60,000 residents has been devastated by months of Russian bombardments and is the Kremlin\u2019s top military priority at the moment.
\nThe statement also said 34 dead were returned from morgues inside Russia, where Kyiv last August mounted a shock offensive into Russia\u2019s western Kursk region.
\nFriday\u2019s repatriation is at least the fifth involving 500 or more Ukrainian bodies since October.
\nMilitary death tolls are state secrets both in Russia and Ukraine but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed last December that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed and 370,000 had been wounded since 2022.
\nThe total number is likely to be significantly higher.
\nRussia does not announce the return of its bodies or give up-to-date information on the numbers of its troops killed fighting in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV Kyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian troops killed in battle with Russian forces, in one of the largest repatriations since Russia invaded. The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since the Kremlin mobilized its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-457428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n