Russia continues to accuse Ukraine of delaying planned exchange of dead fighters

In this photo, taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service connected Sunday, June 8, 2025, Journalists stitchery adjacent the motorcade of refrigerators of the archetypal convoy carrying bodies of Ukrainian soldiers for repatriation astatine an speech country adjacent Novaya Guta, Belarus, for the opening of a large-scale speech betwixt Russia and Ukraine. | Photo Credit: AP

Russian officials said Sunday (June 8, 2025) that Moscow is inactive awaiting authoritative confirmation from Kyiv that a planned speech of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed successful enactment volition instrumentality place, reiterating allegations that Ukraine had postponed the swap.

Russian authorities media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a typical of the Russian negotiating group, arsenic saying that Russia delivered the archetypal batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the speech tract astatine the borderline and is waiting for confirmation from the Ukrainian side, but that determination are “signals” that the process of transferring the bodies volition beryllium postponed until adjacent week.

Russia and Ukraine each accused the different connected Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed successful action, which was agreed upon during nonstop talks successful Istanbul connected Monday that different made nary advancement toward ending the war.

Vladimir Medinsky, a Putin adjutant who led the Russian delegation, said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram station connected Saturday, Medinsky said that refrigerated trucks carrying much than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed speech tract astatine the borderline erstwhile the quality came.

In response, Ukraine said Russia was playing “dirty games” and manipulating facts.

According to the main Ukrainian authorization dealing with specified swaps, nary day had been acceptable for repatriating the bodies. In a connection connected Saturday, the bureau besides accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of warfare for repatriation that didn’t correspond to agreements reached connected Monday.

It wasn’t instantly imaginable to reconcile the conflicting claims.

In different developments, 1 idiosyncratic was killed and different earnestly wounded successful Russian aerial strikes connected the eastbound Ukrainian Kharkiv region. These strikes came aft Russian attacks targeted the determination capital, besides called Kharkiv, connected Saturday. Regional constabulary successful Kharkiv said connected Sunday that the decease toll from Saturday’s attacks had accrued to six people. More than 2 twelve others were wounded.

Russia fired a full of 49 exploding drones and decoys and 3 missiles overnight, Ukraine’s aerial unit said Sunday. Forty drones were changeable down oregon electronically jammed.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces changeable down 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, including adjacent the capital.

Two radical were wounded erstwhile a Ukrainian drone onslaught sparked a occurrence astatine a chemic works successful the Tula region.

Russian authorities said aboriginal connected Sunday that Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports, 2 planetary airports serving Moscow, temporarily suspended flights owed to a Ukrainian drone attack. Later successful the day, Domodedovo halted flights temporarily for a 2nd time, on with Zhukovsky airport.

Published - June 08, 2025 05:31 p.m. IST