Ukraine brings back bodies of another 250 fallen soldiers

Kyiv brought back the bodies of another 250 soldiers killed on the battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) said on Aug. 2.

The bodies will be sent for forensic analysis and identification before being handed over to their families for burial, the headquarters said.

The repatriation was carried out in cooperation between the POWs headquarters, the Reintegration Ministry, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Armed Forces, and other institutions.

"We managed to bring back the bodies of fallen defenders from the Luhansk, Bakhmut, Marinka, Avdiivka, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia sectors, as well as from Mariupol, Horlivka, and (Russian) territory, to their homeland," the headquarters said in a statement.

The Geneva Conventions dictate that people who lost their lives during war are entitled to a dignified burial. Over 3,000 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers have been repatriated from Russian-occupied territories during the full-scale war.

In a previous transfer on June 14, Ukraine managed to bring back the bodies of 254 soldiers.

In late February, Kyiv released information about the total number of Ukrainian troops killed during the full-scale invasion, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the number was around 31,000.