Cnn
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Russia said on Sunday that trains carrying more bodies of Ukrainian soldiers should head for the Ukrainian border, degenerating a spit with kyiv on an exchange of prisoner of war.
“I can tell you that in just one hour, the repatriation trains carrying the bodies of military staff will also begin to move,” said Lieutenant-General Aleksandr Zorini on Sunday.
The transfer of “more than 6,000 bodies” was agreed earlier this week during the peace talks in Istanbul, said Zorin, blaming Ukraine for not having “confirmed the reception” of other organs of Ukrainian soldiers whom Russia claims that he transferred to an exchange area on Saturday.
Kyiv firmly rejected the accusations with Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukraine Defense Head of Defense, claiming that his country strictly adhered to the agreements concluded during the peace talks in Istanbul.
Budanov said that the start of “repatriation measures” was to take place next week, which he claims that the Russian team was informed on Tuesday. “Everything goes as planned, despite the information game on enemy information,” he said.
An expected exchange of Russian And Ukrainian The prisoners of war did not take place on Saturday, with Moscow accusing kyiv of postponing the exchange in the last minute, which the Ukrainian officials rejected the “dirty games” of the Kremlin.
Despite three years of fighting such exchanges, they were commonplace throughout the conflict and the exchange was the only concrete result of talks in Istanbul this week.
Russia said that Ukraine has unexpectedly postponed a transfer involving prisoners of war and the bodies of soldiers who died on Saturday, leaving hundreds of Ukrainian bodies waiting in refrigerated trucks at a point of exchange without anyone to recover them.
Ukraine rejected Russia’s account of events, saying that the two parties had agreed to exchange injuries seriously injured and young troops on Saturday, but a date had not yet been fixed for the repatriation of soldiers’ bodies.
During a second cycle of direct peace Talks in Istanbul On Monday, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange more prisoners this weekend. Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation for peace talks with Ukraine, said this week that the exchange would be the most important since the start of the three -year war.
“Strictly in accordance with the Istanbul agreements, the Russian party began a humanitarian operation to transfer more than 6,000 Ukrainian bodies,” as well as poorly injured soldiers under 25, Telegram told Telegram on Saturday afternoon.
He said 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed were at the point of exchange, the rest “on their way”. He also said that Russia had given Ukraine the first list of 640 prisoners of war for the exchange, listed as “injured, seriously sick and young”, in order to start the exchange.
In a video published by the Ministry of Defense of Russia on Telegram, two men carrying danger combinations are seen opening the doors at the back of a truck parked on the side of a road. Inside the truck, there were dozens of sealed white bags, which, according to the ministry, contained the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.
Medinsky said that the Russian Ministry of Defense Contact Group was waiting on the border with Ukraine, but allegedly alleged that kyiv had “unexpectedly postponed the transfer of bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war for an indefinite period” and had given “strange enough reasons” to do so.
Ukraine quickly rejected the accusations, saying that Medinsky’s claims “do not correspond to reality”. He said the exchange of prisoners of war and the soldiers’ bodies was distinct processes.
“Unfortunately, instead of a constructive dialogue, we are again faced with manipulations and attempts to use humanitarian problems sensitive to information,” wrote the siege of the coordination of Ukraine for the treatment of prisoners of war on Telegram.
“We call on the Russian side to stop playing dirty games,” he added.