CNN
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The planned exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners was not made on Saturday. Moscow accused Kiev of postponing the swap at the last moment.
Russia said Ukraine unexpectedly postponed the transfer, including the bodies of prisoners and dead soldiers, leaving more than 1,200 frozen Ukrainian bodies waiting in refrigerated trucks at exchange points where no one would collect them.
Ukraine refused to explain the events in Russia and said that both sides were seriously injured on Saturday and agreed to exchange young troops, but that no dates had been set for the repatriation of the soldiers’ bodies.
During the second round of in-person peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, Russia and Ukraine agreed to trade more prisoners this weekend. Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation for peace negotiations with Ukraine, said this week that the exchange will be the biggest of the Three Years’ War.
“In accordance with the Istanbul Agreement, the Russian side has launched a humanitarian operation to relocate more than 6,000 murdered Ukrainian soldiers,” severely wounded soldiers under the age of 25 said in a telegram on Saturday afternoon.
He claimed that 1,212 groups of killed Ukrainian soldiers were at the exchange point, with the rest being “in the middle.” He also said Russia gave the first list of exchange prisoners of 640 exchange prisoners listed as “injured, seriously ill, young people” to begin the swap.
A video posted by the Russian Ministry of Defense on Telegram shows two people wearing dangerous goods, with doors open behind a truck parked on the side of the road. Inside the truck, dozens of sealed white bags said the province contains the remains of Ukrainian soldiers.
Medinsky said that a liaison group from the Russian Ministry of Defence was waiting at the border with Ukraine, but Kiev claimed that “unexpectedly postponed the transfer of bodies and the exchange of prisoners indefinitely,” giving him “a rather strange reason” in doing so.
Ukraine quickly rejected the charges, saying Medinsky’s claims “doesn’t respond to reality.” It said that exchanging the bodies of prisoners and soldiers is a separate process.
“Unfortunately, instead of constructive dialogue, we will once again face manipulation and try to use sensitive humanitarian issues for informational purposes,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Ukrainian prisoners wrote in the telegram.
“We are calling on the Russian side to stop playing dirty games,” he added.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said Russia has produced “artificial disorders,” making “false statements,” obstructing the exchange of living prisoners and rebuking the agreed in Istanbul.
“The Ukrainian side is facing another attempt to reject the agreement after the facts,” the ministry said.
While prisoner swaps have been a rare point of agreement between war states, the unraveling of the scheduled exchange on Saturday underscores the lack of trust that has so far undermined peace negotiations.
Spat came shortly after Russia launched another air attack in Ukraine.
