Russia has handed over the remains of 1,000 soldiers to Ukraine and received the bodies of 35 Russian soldiers in return, according to official statements.
The exchange occurred as Ukraine's chief negotiator met with envoys of US President Donald Trump in Geneva to discuss economic plans for Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.
Negotiators were also preparing a third round of US-led talks aimed at ending the conflict, now in its fifth year, which would include a trilateral meeting with Russian participation.
Hours before the Geneva talks, Russia launched 420 drones and 39 missiles across six Ukrainian regions, injuring dozens, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported.
Vladimir Medinsky, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced the body exchange in a brief Telegram statement, without providing details but including an image of bodies being unloaded from a truck.
Ukraine later confirmed receiving 1,000 bodies that "according to prior information from the Russian side, may belong to Ukrainian defenders."
The sides have exchanged thousands of soldiers' bodies since the conflict began with Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
This exchange is based on an agreement reached during negotiations in Istanbul in June 2025, where Moscow and Kyiv agreed to return up to 6,000 soldiers' bodies each, along with all sick, severely wounded prisoners of war, and those under age 25.
Kyiv and Moscow regularly publish estimates of each other's losses but do not detail their own casualties.
Zelensky recently acknowledged 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle—a figure Western observers consider an underestimate as it excludes missing personnel.
From public sources, the BBC has confirmed the names of nearly 186,000 individuals killed fighting on Russia's side in Ukraine, with the actual death toll widely believed to be much higher due to unrecorded battlefield deaths.
Despite estimates suggesting higher daily Russian casualties, Moscow has overall returned more bodies to Ukraine than it has received.
The discrepancy remains unexplained, though Russia has previously accused Ukraine of violating the Istanbul agreement, while Ukraine has alleged irregular Russian body returns that sometimes include Russian remains—a charge Moscow denies.
One possible explanation is that Russia captures more Ukrainian bodies, as its troops have been predominantly on the offensive and thus better positioned to retrieve them from battlefields.
Ahead of the Geneva talks, President Zelensky held a phone call with Trump, expressing hope that the meeting would lead to trilateral negotiations in early March, creating "an opportunity to elevate talks to the leaders' level."
"President Trump supports this sequence of steps," Zelensky stated, adding, "This is the only way to resolve all complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war."
Putin has refused to meet with Zelensky, calling him illegitimate due to the absence of Ukrainian presidential elections despite Zelensky's term expiring in March 2024.
However, Ukraine's constitution prohibits holding elections under martial law, imposed following Putin's invasion of the neighboring country.
Source: www.bbc.com