Kremlin disrespecting families as it stalls return of own dead, says Zelenskiy

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Russian authorities of disrespect towards the families of their own dead soldiers, criticising Moscow for not agreeing on a scheme to have the remains of those killed in action returned to Russia.

Zelenskiy claimed the Kremlin was affording less respect to those killed during its invasion of Ukraine than is usually given to dead pets.

Vereshchuk said Ukraine had the bodies of at least 2,000 Russian soldiers in refrigerated storage in different regions across the country, as well as other cases where there were some charred remains or simply a identification token with a name, but that the Russians were not interested.

She added this would require Russia to send lists of the missing via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which Ukraine would then compare with the bodies it had and could return those that matched. The Russian authorities, she said, did not want to send lists because that would involve admitting how many soldiers have been killed.

Ukrainian officials have said they are trying to treat the remains of Russian soldiers with respect. However, they have also launched a Telegram channel that lists information about those killed in the invasion and that often features grisly photographs of their remains. Some legal experts have said this may violate the Geneva conventions.

On Monday, videos were circulated on a pro-Ukrainian Telegram account appearing to show Ukrainian soldiers using the phone of a dead Russian to call his relatives and gloat over his death. The video could not immediately be verified.

Golub said Ukrainian authorities were demanding that relatives take a DNA test before they could receive the bodies of their dead family members.

Vereshchuk said the process under discussion for individual returns would actually involve Russian relatives providing a DNA sample to the ICRC inside Russia, after which Ukraine would hand remains over to the ICRC for return to their relatives.