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In a group of social media dedicated to the search for Russian soldiers missing in action, the dozens of messages made every day generally contained names and photos, as well as pleadings of mothers, women and desperate sisters in search of their loved ones.
But on Wednesday, some members of the group expressed their frustration and anger. Moscow announced that it had returned the bodies of more than 1,200 Ukrainian soldiers and, in turn, received the remains of 27 Russian soldiers.
“How do they get their fighters, and we can’t ours?” said a woman.
Another member of the group said that her husband, who is currently listed as disappeared, told her during one of their last conversations that the fields were “covered with corpses and that no one wins”.
A third woman replied: “The officials only speak pretty, but in reality, it is the opposite.”
As part of a Limited transaction Reached Istanbul on June 2, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange prisoners of war, including seriously injured and those under 25. They also agreed to repatriate up to 6,000 bodies each, a dark snapshot of the scale of battlefield losses that the two parties rarely approach.
None of the two parties explained why the number of remains repatriated on Wednesday seems so unbalanced, Moscow receiving only 27 bodies.
Ratterification of remains
While Russia seems ready to accelerate a summer offensive, various groups tried to estimate the number of soldiers Killed and injured on each side for more years of war.
The number of Russian soldiers killed and injured is “extraordinary”, wrote the Center for Strategic and International Studies, based in Washington (CSIS), based in Washington In a earlier report this month.
He estimated that this summer, Russia will reach its millionth victim – which includes both death and injuries – With as many 250,000 soldiers killed. The last time Russian officials publicly spoke of the country death was September 2022, when they said that little less than 6,000 years old died during the fighting.
The CSIS estimated that the number of Ukrainian deaths was between 60,000 and 100,000, with more than 300,000 injured soldiers.
In December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 43,000 people had been killed. He had revealed the information in order to correct American President Donald Trump, who posted online that Ukraine had “lost” hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Tens of thousands missing
kyiv says that more than 70,000 Ukrainians have been recorded missing since 2022. The majority comes from the army, but the figure also includes civilians.
12,000 others have been removed from the list after being identified among the dead or released in exchanges.
On Thursday, the headquarters of the coordination of Ukraine for the treatment of prisoners of war said that it had received more than 100,000 requests from Russian citizens, looking for missing parents while serving in the army.
Thousands of bodies had already been repatriated by the two parties before the exchange on Wednesday, in the arrangements where the figures are often not announced publicly.
Russia accused Ukraine of having tried to delay the most recent repatriations. During the weekend, the state media showed a line of refrigerated trucks which, according to him, carried the Ukrainian bodies and were displayed near the border with Ukraine, ready to be delivered. In response, Ukrainian officials accused Russia of manipulating the facts, saying that a date for the exchange had not yet been agreed on the arrival of the trucks.
Prisoner exchanges
Russian officials said that the group he had returned included soldiers killed in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, where the Russian army continues to move forward, as well as Kursk, which Russia resumed after the Ukrainian offensive surprised last summer.
On Thursday, when the two parties published newly released videos of prisoners calling on their family members to say that they had been released, Russian president Vladimir Putin met soldiers and veterans who served in what Russia is still calling for his special military operation.
“Let us remember these guys who are now on the line of combat contact, on the front,” said Putin, before leading a group assembled in front of him with joy, where they shouted “Hoorah” three times.
In recent days, Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian cities, launching a Number of drone recordsWhile his soldiers continue to try to advance the east and the north.
The first assistant of the Defense Committee for the Duma of the Russian State said that the soldiers were trying to create a 100 -kilometer buffer zone in the Ukraine Sumy region.
More evacuations
According to open source cards created by pro-Ukrainian groups, Russia has taken more than 190 square kilometers of the Sumy region in less than a month.
In the Donetsk region in the southeast, Russia forces advance towards the border with the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, according to the American Institute for the Study of War.
Throughout his invasion, Russia has already claimed four Ukrainian regions on which he insists on keeping control. Entering the oblast of Dnipropetrovsk would mean that the country is trying to take an even larger band from Ukrainian territory.
“One after the others, there are colonies and cities, where thousands of people lived, which are destroyed,” said Pavlo Diachenko, communications manager for the Donetsk region.
Diachenko helps evacuate civilians in increasing bombardment. Earlier this week, he told CBC News that he helped people leave the city of Lyman, which was subjected to heavy fights throughout the war.
In May 2022, the city was captured by the Russian forces, then postponed by Ukraine four months later.
The front line is barely eight kilometers.
“The situation is extremely difficult,” said Diachenko, “and we are trying to save as many civilians as possible.”
