Why Did Russia Return 1,000 Bodies?

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00:00Why has Russia handed over 1,000 Ukrainian bodies now?

00:03And why has Ukraine only returned 19?

00:06What is the message behind this imbalance that we're seeing?

00:09Well, those swaps of the bodies of the Delft soldiers

00:13is part of the arrangement that have been reached by the negotiation teams

00:17from Russia and Ukraine during the second round of direct talks between the sides.

00:22And we understand that Moscow is ready to hand over more bodies to the Ukrainian side

00:28as a gesture of goodwill and a humanitarian one as well.

00:32And obviously the ratio that we are seeing, 1,000 bodies returned from Russia to Ukraine

00:39and 19 from Ukraine to Russia means that the losses on the Russian side

00:45are significantly less than on the Ukrainian.

00:49And Moscow has been stressing for months now that the Ukrainian army

00:53has been losing more soldiers on the battlefield,

00:56while Russia has never disclosed the exact number of its own losses

01:01during the course of the so-called special military operation in Ukraine.

01:05And the hope in Moscow is that once the exchange of those bodies is complete,

01:09then the sides will be talking finally about the exact date

01:13for the third round of talks to be held between Moscow and Kiev.

01:17And the Kremlin has also been saying that Kiev obviously is no rush to announce that date.

01:24So, finally now, the understanding in Moscow is that once this exchange is complete,

01:30they will be talking about more talks,

01:32especially now that there's been the 50-day deadline introduced by the American administration,

01:38although Russia has seemingly ignored that deadline.

01:42But obviously the hope is that talks will continue.

01:45So, yeah.