Moscow returns the bodies of Ukrainian defenders in increasingly worse condition due to time and neglect of conditions

The Russians are handing over the bodies of fallen defenders to Ukraine in increasingly worse condition, as the bodies may have been on the battlefield for one to three years, and the invaders also neglect the necessary conditions for their storage. This was reported by the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Leonid Tymchenko in an interview with LIGA.net.

"[This situation is related] to the fact that the full-scale war has been going on for almost three and a half years. The bodies that are now being recovered from the battlefield may have been there for over a year, two, or even three. Therefore, it is perfectly understandable and predictable – they are in increasingly worse condition. The bodies that were handed over to us in the summer of 2022 and the bodies that are being handed over now, of course, differ significantly," the official said.

He confirmed that the Russians are not adhering to the necessary conditions for storing the bodies and are not following any norms of international and humanitarian law.

"It's enough that the bodies have been lying there, for example, for more than one summer in the open air. We have areas that neither our search teams nor the Russians can access today. We understand that there are a large number of bodies there," Tymchenko noted.

Instead, he added, Ukraine stores the bodies of the occupiers in refrigerators, strictly adhering to temperature conditions.

The official emphasized that these are refrigerated containers, either of the wagon type (railroad) or automotive, which must be connected to a power supply in order to store bodies for a long period of time.

• In the same interview, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs stated that Russia is currently not retrieving the bodies of the dead occupiers who are on the front lines – this is not a priority for the invaders.
• Tymchenko also reported that experts face cases where it is impossible to identify the body of the deceased or their remains: this happens because the deceased had no relatives or did not provide biological material.