Russia thought Ukraine would welcome back dead soldiers: Medinsky
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Medinsky says Ukraine failed to collect 6,000 soldiers’ remains despite prior coordination, calling Kyiv’s absence from the exchange site “incomprehensible.”
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Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky attends a meeting of the Presidential Council for State Policy on Promoting the Russian Language and Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation, near Moscow, Russia, June 5, 2025 (AP)
Russia anticipated a positive response from Ukraine regarding the handover of 6,000 deceased Ukrainian soldiers' remains, Russian presidential aide and Ukraine negotiations chief Vladimir Medinsky stated Monday.
"We thought they would say 'thank you.' Because 6,000 families would finally be able to bury their sons and husbands... They are lying frozen, dressed in Ukrainian armed forces uniforms, many of them carrying documents, frozen in plastic bags," Medinsky stated in an interview with RT.
Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin and head of the Russian delegation in talks with Ukraine, announced Saturday that Russia had initiated the process of returning more than 6,000 Ukrainian bodies and was prepared to conduct a parallel POW exchange. "The Ukrainian side did not arrive at the exchange site, although the date had been announced in advance," Medinsky said, referring to arrangements made during the June 2 negotiations in Istanbul.
Ukraine fails to show up at prisoner, body exchange
Ukraine did not show up at the agreed-upon location for the POW and body exchange agreement with Russia, which both sides reached during the latest round of talks in Istanbul.
"We have seen reports from Ukrainian and international media claiming that the operation has allegedly been postponed until next week. We are awaiting official communications on this matter," General Alexander Zorin told TASS on June 7.
The Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova condemned Ukraine's move, claiming that a generational curse will befall the Ukrainian authorities should they fail to recover the bodies of Kiev's soldiers.
The Russian Security Council deputy chairman, Dmitry Medvedev, published a scathing criticism on X, saying that "The Kiev bastards don't want to take the bodies of their dead soldiers," and emphasizing that Ukraine did not receive the bodies out of fear of admitting their losses and wanting to avoid compensating their families.
