Kyiv rejects Russia’s claims that Ukraine is delaying exchange of soldiers’ bodies

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KYIV (Reuters) -Russia’s claims that Ukraine is delaying exchange of soldiers’ bodies are untrue, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, urging Moscow to stop “playing dirty games” and return to constructive work.

Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said on Saturday that Ukraine had unexpectedly postponed exchanging prisoners of war and accepting the bodies of killed soldiers for an indefinite period.

Russia and Ukraine held the second round of peace talks in Istanbul on Monday where they agreed to exchange more prisoners – focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded – and to return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers.

“Today’s statements by the Russian side do not correspond to reality or to previous agreements on either the exchange of prisoners or the repatriation of bodies,” Ukraine’s state-run Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on the Telegram messenger.

It said that the agreement on the repatriation of the bodies had indeed been reached, but that no date had been agreed upon and that “the Russian side had resorted to unilateral actions” that had not been agreed within the framework of the process.

Medinsky said Russia had also handed over to Ukraine the first list of 640 prisoners of war, categorised as “wounded, seriously ill and young people,” in order to begin the exchange.

Ukraine, in turn, stated that it had also handed over the names for exchange, while Russia’s lists did not correspond to the agreed approach as to which prisoners would be prioritised in the exchange.

(Reporting by Pavel PolityukEditing by Tomasz Janowski)