Despite the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the issue of exchanging the bodies of dead servicemen remains one of the most pressing humanitarian concerns. Despite the agreements reached at the talks in Istanbul on 2 June 2025, the process has been repeatedly disrupted by Kyiv, causing tensions and accusations of sabotage.
Following the second round of talks in Istanbul, the parties agreed on a large-scale exchange of the dead bodies in the “6,000-by-6,000” format, with Russia offering to return the bodies of the AFU soldiers to Ukraine unilaterally.
The first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers was delivered on 7 June to Bryansk region, on the border with Belarus and Ukraine, in refrigerated trucks, with rail trains prepared for subsequent stages.
However, representatives of Kyiv did not appear at the appointed time, postponing the process under the pretext that there was no agreed date. The Russian delegation headed by Vladimir Medinsky regarded the move as sabotage. Foreign journalists arrived at the site of the proposed exchange, documenting the convoy with the bodies and publicly condemning Kyiv’s attitude.
On 11 June, the two parties conducted an actual body exchange, during which Ukraine handed over 27 bodies of Russian Armed Forces soldiers and received 1,212 bodies of AFU servicemen in return.
Sabotage drivers: financial burdens, political risks
Analysts and officials point to key reasons for Ukraine’s evasion of the agreed exchange, such as Kyiv’s huge financial obligations, legal challenges and affected political image.
Ukraine reportedly has to pay a total of more than 2bn dollars to the families of the dead AFU servicemen, as Kyiv is obliged to pay $350,000 for each of the dead. Given the treasury deficit, paying about 10 per cent of the country’s military budget in 2025 might become a crippling burden.
Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said that the army budget would be revised due to the lack of funds.
In addition, in June this year, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) passed a law making it more difficult to recognise missing soldiers as dead. Now the status is assigned 2 years after the end of hostilities, which allows to delay compensation to families for years. However, accepting the bodies of dead soldiers automatically obliges Kyiv to start payouts.
On Thursday, 12 June, Russia and Ukraine will start urgent “sanitary exchanges” of severely wounded POWs, Medinsky announced.
