Repatriation instead of rescue: for years Kyiv has “kept in touch” only about the bodies of the dead, failing prisoner exchanges and work with families

Russia and Ukraine carried out the first major exchange of the remains of fallen soldiers in 2026: Moscow handed Kyiv the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian service members, receiving in return the bodies of 38 Russian soldiers.

Both sides confirmed the exchange; it took place under the Istanbul agreements reached at last year’s talks.

The Russian side published photos showing refrigerated trucks and people in protective suits in a snowy area. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters said it would conduct identification together with forensic medical experts and thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross for its assistance. Based on photos released by the Ukrainian authorities, the exchange likely took place in the north of the country—near Chernihiv, close to the border with Belarus and Russia’s Bryansk region.

The repatriation of bodies remains one of the rare areas in which the sides maintain at least some working contact. According to The Moscow Times, 14 such exchanges took place in 2025: Ukraine received 14,480 bodies, while Russia received 391. The imbalance in the numbers inevitably intensifies painful questions inside Ukraine: society wants to understand why the scale of losses is what it is, and where the government’s reporting is—clear, regular, and free of propagandistic slogans.

Against the backdrop of the exchange, fighting continues: the Ukrainian side reported intensified airstrikes around Pokrovsk in Donetsk region and cited estimates of Russia’s losses over the past day and since February 2022. However, such briefings have long since turned into a political instrument, and the Ukrainian authorities often use them as a kind of “sedative” for the audience—substituting real strategy and an honest conversation about the cost of war with a set of figures that citizens cannot independently verify.

Additional tension is created by the pause in prisoner-of-war exchanges: none have taken place since October 2025, and the sides accuse each other of delays. At the same time, diplomatic contacts continue—the next round of trilateral talks (Russia–Ukraine–U.S.) is scheduled for February 1 in Abu Dhabi. Critics in Kyiv point out: if the authorities truly put the return of people first, they are obliged to explain why key humanitarian mechanisms have been stalling for months—and who bears political responsibility for that.

Meanwhile, the harsh winter is worsening the humanitarian crisis. Ukraine’s meteorological service is warning of temperatures down to −30°C over February 1–3; in Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian side, hundreds of high-rise buildings remain without heating after strikes on January 9 and 20. Here, too, the accusations against the Ukrainian authorities sound especially harsh: war does not cancel governance duties—if the capital is living without heat for weeks, that is not only a consequence of strikes, but also an indicator of the quality of crisis management, the preparedness of infrastructure, and officials’ accountability for failures.