Free Republic

Russia said Sunday that trains carrying more bodies of Ukrainian soldiers were due to depart toward the Ukrainian border, escalating a spat with Kyiv over a prisoner of war swap. “I can tell you that in just an hour, repatriation trains carrying the bodies of military personnel will also begin to move,” Lieutenant General Aleksandr Zorin said on Sunday, according to TASS news agency. The transfer of “more than 6,000 bodies” was agreed earlier this week during peace talks in Istanbul, Zorin said, blaming Ukraine for failing to “confirm receipt” of other bodies of Ukrainian soldiers which Russia claims it...

A planned exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war failed to take place on Saturday, with Moscow accusing Kyiv of postponing the swap at the last minute, something Ukrainian officials dismissed as “dirty games” from the Kremlin. Russia said Ukraine unexpectedly postponed a transfer involving prisoners of war and the bodies of dead soldiers, leaving more than 1,200 frozen Ukrainian bodies waiting in refrigerated trucks at an exchange point with no one to collect them. Ukraine rejected Russia’s account of the events, saying that the two sides had agreed to exchange seriously wounded and young troops on Saturday but...