Ukraine has returned bodies of more than 400 soldiers killed since the beginning of the war

VALENTYNA ROMANENKO – SUNDAY, 3 JULY 2022, 23:12

Ukraine has been able to return the bodies of more than 400 soldiers killed in the war since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022.

Source: Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, on air during the 24/7 national joint newscast

Quote: "We have already returned more than 400 bodies … This is definitely too few, because we know that there are many more. Russia doesn’t want its citizens to see large numbers of bodies being handed over. They understand how explosive this would be, so they’re doing it almost secretively, not publicly, and they’re trying to not hand over any bodies to us.

Let me explain another problematic circumstance, which will continue to pose problems in the future. We are conducting identification and genetic analysis in line with European protocols. Russia does not support the European protocols in principle. It sticks to its mediaeval, barbaric practices, and its own protocols.

In future, this will be a significant problem because the examinations that they conduct, their genetic analyses, will definitely not add up, and it is possible that we will not be able to see the bodies that they will hand over to us from our lists [of killed soldiers - ed.]. It’s a problem we face, but we’re thinking about how we can solve it."