Russian casualty numbers hit one million as both sides exchange their war dead
Russian casualties have reached around one million since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago, the Ministry of Defence has revealed.
The MOD estimated that 250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or are missing, presumed dead, which would represent Russia's largest losses in an active conflict since the Second World War.
It comes as the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the long-running conflict were repatriated, the Kyiv officials responsible for exchanging prisoners of war said.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said Ukraine had returned the bodies of 27 Russian soldiers.
The military intelligence update added that Russian forces may have sustained more than 250,000 casualties this year, with the Ukrainian General Staff claiming there is a daily average of more than 1,250 Russian casualties.
"Russian permanent combat losses (killed, missing and irrevocably wounded) are likely currently between 400,000 and 500,000 personnel," the MOD said.
"Wounded soldiers, especially those who are irrevocably wounded, continue to strain the Russian military medical system at all levels of medical care, causing significant logistic problems and resulting in a shortage of military medical personnel."
Ukraine's prisoner exchange coordination committee released images from the scene of the exchange of war dead showing personnel of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at an undisclosed location, walking past several refrigerated trucks.
Several trucks had emblems of On the Shield, a Ukrainian organisation which works on the retrieval and evacuation of military dead.
The latest swap follows an agreement between Kyiv and Moscow at their most recent round of talks on the large-scale exchange of the remains of war dead, although the agreement was reportedly "marred by wrangling over its implementation".
At the start of this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia wished to give 6,000 bodies back to Ukraine, but only around 15% of them had been identified.
"We already had a moment once when they transferred bodies to us and were also transferring bodies of Russian dead soldiers," Mr Zelensky said.
Kyiv's Interior Ministry, law enforcement agencies and the Health Ministry will try to find out the identities of the 1,212 bodies as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine have exchanged dozens of prisoners of war under the age of 25, as well as seriously wounded and ill prisoners, in harrowing homecoming scenes.
Mr Medinsky said Russia and Ukraine would be exchanging further seriously wounded and ill prisoners of war.
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