{"id":7883,"date":"2025-06-21T12:01:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T12:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.euro-tv.ro\/news\/russia-afraid-to-admit-scale-of-losses-trying-to-hide-by-dumping-soldiers-bodies-on-ukraine-zelensky-says\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T12:01:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T12:01:39","slug":"russia-afraid-to-admit-scale-of-losses-trying-to-hide-by-dumping-soldiers-bodies-on-ukraine-zelensky-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euro-tv.ro\/news\/russia-afraid-to-admit-scale-of-losses-trying-to-hide-by-dumping-soldiers-bodies-on-ukraine-zelensky-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia ‘afraid to admit’ scale of losses, trying to hide by dumping soldiers’ bodies on Ukraine, Zelensky says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Russia<\/p>\n

Russia is using the return of war dead as a tool for manipulation to obscure the scale of its military losses from the public, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing on June 20 attended by the Kyiv Independent.<\/p>\n

According to Zelensky, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that at least 20 of the bodies Russia returned as Ukrainian were actually Russian soldiers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes these bodies even have Russian passports,” Zelensky said. He also cited the case of a deceased Israeli citizen fighting on Russia’s side, whom Moscow<\/a> had passed off as a Ukrainian soldier.<\/p>\n

“Putin is afraid to admit how many people have died. Because if the moment comes when he needs to mobilize, his society will be afraid,” he said.<\/p>\n

Zelensky’s remarks follow the June 2 prisoner and body exchange agreement in Istanbul<\/a>, the most extensive of the full-scale war. Under that deal, Ukraine recovered<\/a> 6,057 bodies of its fallen soldiers. Russia<\/a>, according to Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, took back only 78.<\/p>\n

Explaining the difference between the two numbers, Zelensky said that the bodies of the vast majority of Russian soldiers currently killed on the battlefield remain in Russian hands.<\/p>\n

“They were advancing, and their dead remained in the territory where they were,” he said.<\/p>\n

According to the president, exchanges of bodies and even severely wounded soldiers have taken place on the battlefield, but such exchanges are typically not publicized.<\/p>\n

\n
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\"Russia<\/picture>
President Volodymyr Zelensky presents evidence to the media in Kyiv on June 21, 2025, showing that Russia handed over the bodies of its own soldiers during exchanges. (Presidential Office)<\/figcaption><\/div>\n
\"Russia<\/picture>
President Volodymyr Zelensky presents evidence to the media in Kyiv on June 21, 2025, showing that Russia handed over the bodies of its own soldiers during exchanges. (Presidential Office)<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko<\/a> earlier confirmed a case in which the remains of Alexander Viktorovich Bugaev, a Russian soldier from the 39th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, were returned to Ukraine<\/a> disguised as a Ukrainian casualty.<\/p>\n

“This shows how little human life means to Russia. Or maybe it’s just a way to avoid paying compensation to the families. But they will have to pay anyway: we are returning these bodies,” Klymenko said on June 19.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s General Staff<\/a> said on June 21 that Russian forces have sustained over 1,010,000 casualties \u2014 killed and wounded \u2014 since launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

Independent Russian outlet Mediazona, along with the BBC Russian Service, has verified<\/a> the identities of 111,387 Russian soldiers killed, emphasizing that the actual number is likely much higher.<\/p>\n

Russia has continued to deny the scale of its losses, often inflating Ukrainian casualties and spreading false narratives. Zelensky warned that this is part of a broader propaganda<\/a> effort to “break the reality in which we live,” in which Russian forces are suffering far greater losses.<\/p>\n

The June 2 negotiations in Istanbul led to the most extensive prisoner and body exchange agreement of the full-scale war, although no ceasefire<\/a> was achieved. <\/p>\n

On June 7, Russia accused<\/a> Kyiv of rejecting a proposed body return, releasing footage that allegedly showed Ukrainian corpses stored in refrigeration units. Ukraine dismissed<\/a> these claims, saying that the footage was shot on Russian territory, not at a designated handover site.<\/p>\n

Kyiv has consistently called for an “all-for-all” exchange of prisoners of war, but Moscow has so far refused to agree to a comprehensive swap.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n
\u2018All of Ukraine is ours\u2019 \u2014 Putin on Russia\u2019s territorial ambitions in Ukraine<\/div>\n
Editor\u2019s Note: This story was updated with comments from Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. Russian President Vladimir Putin said \u201call of Ukraine\u201d belonged to Russia in a speech on June 20 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, amid increasingly aggressive official statements about Moscow\u2019s final territorial ambitions in Ukraine. Putin\u2019s<\/div>\n
\"RussiaThe Kyiv Independent<\/span>Kateryna Hodunova<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"Russia<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

– https:\/\/kyivindependent.com\/tag\/ukraine\/rss\/<\/p>\n

This article appeared on the websitekyivindependent.com
\nThis article is taken based on Law no. 8\/1996 of Romania. News does not enjoy copyright, so they can be taken, this is our right to take news and information in its entirety and distribute them further. The content was made available to us through the rss mechanism
\nOriginal Content<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia is using the return of war dead as a tool for manipulation to obscure the scale of its military losses from the public, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing on June 20 attended by the Kyiv Independent. According to Zelensky, Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that at least 20 of the bodies Russia returned […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152,1],"tags":[2599,2702,5659,108,7302,3204,2618,43,209,1171,51,5362,1512,123,346,66,1167],"class_list":["post-7883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kyivindependent","category-news","tag-admit","tag-afraid","tag-bodies","tag-by","tag-dumping","tag-hide","tag-losses","tag-of","tag-on","tag-russia","tag-says","tag-scale","tag-soldiers","tag-to","tag-trying","tag-ukraine","tag-zelensky"],"yoast_head":"\nRussia 'afraid to admit' scale of losses, trying to hide by dumping soldiers' bodies on Ukraine, Zelensky says - News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.euro-tv.ro\/news\/russia-afraid-to-admit-scale-of-losses-trying-to-hide-by-dumping-soldiers-bodies-on-ukraine-zelensky-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia 'afraid to admit' scale of losses, trying to hide by dumping soldiers' bodies on Ukraine, Zelensky says - News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Russia is using the return of war dead as a tool for manipulation to obscure the scale of its military losses from the public, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing on June 20 attended by the Kyiv Independent. 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