Budanov: Body exchange scheduled for next week

Workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross check bags with bodies of soldiers. Photo: AP/Evhenii Maloletka

The head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, confirmed that the exchange of bodies between Ukraine and Russia is scheduled for next week.

He made the announcement on social media.

Kyrylo Budanov said that the repatriation activities following the talks in Istanbul are scheduled to begin next week (9-15 June), and that the authorised persons were informed about this on Tuesday, 3 June.

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According to him, Ukraine is facing information pressure and attempts to single-handedly dictate the parameters of the exchange process.

«We are carefully adhering to the agreements reached in Istanbul. Who, when and how to exchange should not be someone's sole decision. Thorough preparations are underway. Pressure and manipulation are unacceptable here. The attempts of some Russian propagandists to speculate on the human grief they themselves are involved in sound particularly cynical», said Kyrylo Budanov.

He noted that the Coordination Centre is working hard to organise the exchange based on the agreements reached.

«Everything is going according to plan, despite the enemy's dirty information game», added Kyrylo Budanov.

Earlier, Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinskyi said that the Ukrainian side had postponed the exchange of prisoners and bodies of fallen soldiers. Ukraine denied this information.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said that Russian media reports about the alleged start of the return of the bodies of fallen soldiers after the agreements in Istanbul were false.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukraine has already returned the bodies of more than 7,000 defenders. During the last exchange on 16 May, 909 bodies were returned.

As a reminder, during the second round of talks in Istanbul, Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement on the exchange of several categories of prisoners of war. The parties agreed not to focus on the number of prisoners, but to exchange all seriously wounded and sick soldiers, as well as all prisoners aged 18 to 25, within the format of «all for all».