The bodies of another Ukrainian soldier were returned to Ukraine

The bodies of another 83 fallen Ukrainian soldiers were returned to Ukraine on Friday from the territories occupied by Russian forces, the Ukrainian ministry responsible for the reintegration of temporarily occupied territories announced.

Photo: Aris Messinis / AFP

The bodies were transported with the cooperation of the office responsible for missing persons under the Ministry of Reintegration, in cooperation with law enforcement agencies, the ministry wrote in a statement.

The Ukrainska Pravda news portal reminded that, according to the ministry’s previous statement, the bodies of 1,426 soldiers had been returned to Ukraine by March 3.

The coordinating command responsible for the treatment of prisoners of war informed that Ukraine unilaterally handed over to Russia all seriously injured and seriously ill Russian prisoners who were in transportable condition. According to the statement, Kiev did this based on the relevant articles of the Geneva Convention and in cooperation with the International Red Cross. In this case, it was not an exchange of prisoners of war, but the unconditional repatriation of seriously wounded prisoners as required by international humanitarian law, the command announced. It was not disclosed how many prisoners were handed over to Russia.

“At the same time, the aggressor state, systematically ignoring international norms, continues to detain thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including the seriously ill and wounded, civilians, children and women, the elderly, as well as those who were captured before the beginning of the Russian invasion. These categories of citizens according to international humanitarian law, he must be returned to Ukraine without any conditions. Despite this, Russia also refuses representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to reach the detainees, does not provide the prisoners with contact with their relatives, proper nutrition, medical care, deliberately inhumane conditions creates for them in captivity, added the command. He emphasized: “Ukraine calls on the world community to increase pressure on the aggressor state in order to force Russia to comply with international humanitarian law, and Ukraine is detaining all illegally tt citizen to be freed from captivity”.

The governor’s office of the northeastern Sumi county informed that the region was hit by a Russian airstrike on the night of Friday, as a result of which two local residents lost their lives in the Bilopillja settlement.

Serhiy Liszak, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, announced on Telegram that the city of Kryvyi Rih was attacked by Russian forces at night with Iranian-made Shahid self-destruct drones, five drones crashed, but there were no personal injuries.

The Ukrainian Southern Operations Command reported that the southern Odesa region was fired upon by Russian Su-35 fighter jets with missiles, and the Ukrainian air defense destroyed two H-59 “air-to-ground” missiles. There were no reports of casualties.

According to the situation report of the Ukrainian General Staff on Friday, the loss of lives of the Russian army in Ukraine increased by about 1,020 to 169,170 over the past day. Among other things, the Ukrainian forces destroyed four tanks, eight artillery pieces, and three air defense systems. Since the start of the war last February, Russia has lost 3,574 tanks, 2,616 artillery and 276 anti-aircraft guns.