Ukraine brings the bodies of 30 soldiers home

ALONA MAZURENKO – TUESDAY, 12 JULY 2022, 17:02

On 12 July in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine brought the bodies of 30 Ukrainian soldiers home.

Source: press service of the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine; Oleh Kotenko, commissioner for missing persons, talking to Suspilne

Quote: "The bodies of 30 Ukrainian servicemen will be given to their families for a decent funeral.

The operation has been conducted in Zaporizhzhia Oblast jointly by the Commissioner, the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other security agencies of Ukraine."

Details: Oleh Kotenko, the commissioner for missing persons, reported that the bodies have been recovered.

The recovery process is being carried out in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

Kotenko said Ukraine had brought back over 400 bodies through exchanges with Russia, most of them soldiers who were killed at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

There are problems with identification, however, as the bodies are transferred without documentation.

The Ukrainian side asks to be told at least which front the soldier’s body was taken from: "There is an arrangement with Russia to at least indicate where the body was taken from – the Luhansk front, Volnovakha front, Kharkiv front etc. There are a lot of bodies with no documents, and we don’t know their identities."

At the moment the bodies are being transferred to morgues in Kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv; a morgue in Zaporizhzhia is to be added. However, soldiers’ relatives can do DNA testing in any city.

Background:

• On 2 June the Ukrainian and Russian sides conducted an exchange of soldiers’ bodies following the "160 for 160" formula.
• At the end of June the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War brought 35 soldiers’ bodies back to Ukraine in exchange for the bodies of 50 occupiers.