The Daily Populous Sunday June 22nd, 2025 morning edition
Authored by kyivindependent.com and submitted by AdSpecialist6598

This audio is created with AI assistance

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 as Ukrainian were actually Russian soldiers.

"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 had passed off as a Ukrainian soldier.

"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.

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

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.

"They were advancing, and their dead remained in the territory where they were," he said.

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.

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) 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)

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko 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 disguised as a Ukrainian casualty.

"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.

Ukraine's General Staff said on June 21 that Russian forces have sustained over 1,010,000 casualties — killed and wounded — since launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Independent Russian outlet Mediazona, along with the BBC Russian Service, has verified the identities of 111,387 Russian soldiers killed, emphasizing that the actual number is likely much higher.

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 effort to "break the reality in which we live," in which Russian forces are suffering far greater losses.

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

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

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.

divers91 on June 21st, 2025 at 14:36 UTC »

They also don't have to pay the families in Russia if they say the person is "missing"

The-M0untain on June 21st, 2025 at 13:08 UTC »

Everyone knows Russia is losing massive amounts of soldiers every day. Maybe the only one who doesn't know this is Putin himself because his advisers are too scared to tell him.

ledow on June 21st, 2025 at 12:44 UTC »

This is the problem with being a dictator. Nobody will tell you when they fuck up because you're going to kill them if they fuck up, and kill them if you hide it from you. So might as well just hide it anyway and take the chance you might survive.

It's like being the guy in Downfall who has to tell Hitler that they've basically lost. Nobody wants to be that guy, so you end up in a position where you've been losing for ages but haven't known it because all the sycophants just tell you everything is wonderful, and by then it's too late to do anything about it.

Sympathy level: Zero, by the way. You want to live by the sword, you can die by the sword as far as I'm concerned.

But it is quite dumb how dictators and wanna-be dictators have such a loose grasp on reality and don't realise that killing anyone that disagrees with you if you're wrong leads to... being surrounded by incompetents.