Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Moscow sent bodies of 20 Russian soldiers instead of Ukrainian ones in the latest swap with Kyiv in line with Istanbul peace talks.
Zelenskiy attributed the move to Russia’s disorganization in exchanges of wounded prisoners of war and remains of troops.
“They threw the corpses of their citizens at us. This is their attitude toward war, toward their soldiers. And this is already documented. Sometimes these bodies even have Russian passports,” Zelenskiy said in remarks made public on Saturday. He stressed that Russia insists the dead were all Ukrainians, adding that among the dead was an “Israeli mercenary” fighting for Moscow.
Furthermore, Zelenskiy accused western companies from Germany, Japan, South Korea and Czech Republic of supplying the Kremlin with machine tools used in Russia’s weapons production. He added that most of the companies supplying Russia with weapons were from China.
“We have passed on all this information to all countries, our partners, everyone. We strongly urge everyone to impose sanctions on these companies,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Since Russia’s full-fledged invasion began three years ago, both sides have suffered devastating military losses totaling tens of thousands of soldiers killed. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv publicly discloses regular casualty updates. In a recent statement, Zelenskiy reported 695,000 Russian troops are currently deployed on Ukrainian territory.
