Kateryna Zarembo has spent years researching and telling important stories from Ukraine. As a researcher and writer, she famously captured the cultural and linguistic richness of eastern Ukraine through field work while Russian propaganda tried to erase it. Her book "Ukrainian Sunrise" stands as evidence that Donbas was
Russia returned the bodies of 522 people to Ukraine on 18 June 2026, the latest handover in the recurring repatriation of soldiers killed in Russia's war on Ukraine. Russian officials claim the remains belong to Ukrainian citizens, including military personnel.
The return was carried out by Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which announced the transfer. The Security Service's Joint Center, the armed forces, and other agencies took part, with the International Committee of the Red Cross assisting.
Forensic experts from the Interior Ministry will now begin identifying the dead, and the work is slow. Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said in remarks carried by the National Police that full identification of repatriated remains takes around 14 months, in large part because of the condition in which the bodies arrive.
Russia often hands over the remains of several people in a single bag, Klymenko said, and parts of one person are sometimes found across different bags—or even across different stages of repatriation. Ukrainian specialists run DNA tests on every body and every fragment, and any remains found not to belong to Ukrainian defenders are sent back to Russia.
The bodies frequently arrive without identification: of one earlier batch of 6,000, only 15% came identified, President Zelenskyy said. Once DNA tests confirm a body is that of a Ukrainian defender, it is released to relatives to be honored and buried.
The 18 June handover is the latest in a steady cadence of returns. Ukraine received 528 bodies in a near-identical operation in May, and 1,000 last November, then the third large-scale return in two months.
The exchanges stem from the June 2025 talks in Istanbul, where Russia and Ukraine agreed to repatriate the remains of 6,000 fallen on each side. Ukraine took back more than 6,000 bodies in the weeks that followed; Russia, by its own account, received only dozens.
At least 200 Russian soldiers aged 18 have been confirmed killed in Ukraine, according to a new joint investigation by BBC Russian and independent Russian outlet Mediazona, which has identified 226,055 Russian military deaths since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been defined by exceptionally high and sustained casualty rates across all phases of the war, driven by large-scale frontal assaults, prolonged artillery duels, and the expanding use of drone warfare that has widened the lethal “kill zone” across much of the frontline.
The youngest confirmed casualty in the latest update was born in 2008, marking the first recorded 18-year-old in the dataset. Researchers say the overall figure includes more than 200 teenagers aged 18, underscoring the scale of young recruits being sent into combat.
One case highlighted in the report is that of 18-year-old Alisher Svirin, who died on 1 May 2026 and was buried later that month in Moscow Oblast. He had signed a contract and served in a motor rifle brigade as a machine gunner. According to the investigation, he could not have spent more than a few months in service before being killed.
Regional data also highlights a consistent imbalance in casualty distribution, with poorer regions such as Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and Tuva showing significantly higher per-capita losses than Russia’s largest cities.
Researchers attribute this gap to recruitment patterns that rely more heavily on economically disadvantaged areas, where military service offers relatively higher financial incentives.
At the same time, major urban centres such as Moscow remain underrepresented in the casualty lists, reflecting both demographic differences in recruitment and uneven exposure to frontline deployments.
The database is compiled from publicly available sources, including obituaries, official regional announcements, social media posts, and burial records. Analysts say it likely captures only a portion of total losses.
The report notes that more than half of confirmed deaths now come from volunteers, mobilised personnel, and convicts recruited from penal colonies, reflecting Russia’s reliance on short-training pipeline forces for frontline deployments.
Researchers also say the structure of the battlefield has changed the visibility of losses. Widespread drone warfare has expanded the “kill zone” across large sections of the front, making recovery of bodies difficult and delaying official confirmation of deaths, sometimes for months or years.
Based on current estimates, analysts suggest Russia’s real death toll could be significantly higher than identified figures, potentially reaching between 347,000 and 502,000 when accounting for incomplete data coverage.
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