On Sunday, Russian officials stated that Moscow is still waiting for official confirmation from Kyiv regarding a scheduled exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers who had been killed in action. They also reiterated allegations that Ukraine had delayed the swap. Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, who indicated that Russia had delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the agreed-upon exchange site at the border. Zorin mentioned that Russia is awaiting confirmation from the Ukrainian side, but there are "signals" that the body transfer process could be postponed until the following week.
On Saturday, both Russia and Ukraine accused each other of jeopardizing plans to conduct the body swap, which had been agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul earlier in the week. Vladimir Medinsky, a key aide to President Vladimir Putin who led the Russian delegation, claimed that Kyiv had called off the imminent exchange at the last moment. Medinsky disclosed that refrigerated trucks carrying over 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already arrived at the agreed exchange site when this news emerged.
In a counter-statement, Ukraine accused Russia of engaging in "dirty games" and manipulating facts surrounding the body swap. The Ukrainian authority responsible for overseeing these exchanges stated that no date had been confirmed for the repatriation of the bodies. In their statement, they also charged that Russia had submitted lists of prisoners of war that did not align with the agreements reached during the talks on Monday.
The conflicting claims made it challenging to establish clarity on the situation. In parallel developments, Russian aerial strikes on the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region resulted in one fatality and left another individual seriously wounded. These aerial assaults followed a series of Russian attacks that targeted the regional capital, which is also named Kharkiv, leading to the deaths of at least four people and injuring over two dozen on Saturday.
According to Ukraine's air force, Russia launched a total of 49 exploding drones and decoys, along with three missiles overnight. Ukrainian forces managed to shoot down or electronically jam 40 of these drones. Conversely, Russia's defense ministry claimed that its forces had downed 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, including some near the capital city of Ukraine.
In another incident, two people sustained injuries during a Ukrainian drone strike that ignited a fire at a chemical plant in the Tula region of Russia. This ongoing conflict continues to escalate, illustrating the complex and multifaceted nature of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
