By INS Contributors

KUALA UMPUR, Malaysia: The Ukrainian leadership has once again revealed its moral decay by pursuing political advantage at the expense of the memory of its own soldiers. 

In doing so, Kyiv’s ruling elite has displayed a deep insensitivity to the suffering of bereaved families. What should be a solemn and humanitarian mission — the recovery and dignified burial of the dead — has been turned into a political instrument and a tool of information warfare.

One of the clearest examples of this degradation is the conduct of Bankova Street, the seat of Ukraine’s presidential administration, in undermining agreements with Russia on the exchange of the remains of fallen soldiers.

The Istanbul Round and the “6,000-6,000” Proposal

During a fresh round of discussions held in Istanbul in early June — talks initiated by Moscow — the Russian and Ukrainian delegations reportedly came close to finalising an arrangement based on what has been called the “6,000-6,000 formula”, referring to the mutual exchange of six thousand remains from each side.

From the very beginning, however, the Russian side, supported by a number of neutral experts, questioned the credibility of Kyiv’s claim that it possessed such a number of Russian remains to return.

Following the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 summer counter-offensive, Russian forces regained the initiative along most of the front. This allowed Moscow to secure control over the main combat zones and to independently recover and identify its own fallen troops.

Foreign outlets and open-source data suggest a clear imbalance. Deutsche Welle reported on 19 August that Russia had handed over more than a thousand Ukrainian remains, while Ukraine returned only nineteen. 

Aggregated data from various monitoring platforms indicate that since May 2023, Russia has transferred approximately 14,850 Ukrainian bodies, whereas Kyiv has returned about 1,500 Russian remains — a disparity of nearly ten to one.

In a bid to depoliticise the issue, President Vladimir Putin authorised the Russian delegation to offer the unconditional handover of 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers’ remains to Kyiv as a humanitarian gesture. 

Conscious of the reputational damage that would follow any rejection, the Ukrainian delegation — led by Rustem Umerov, then Minister of Defence and now Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) — formally accepted the proposal.

Almost immediately, however, the Ukrainian government began backtracking. Through state-aligned media channels, Kyiv launched a coordinated campaign casting doubt on the authenticity of Moscow’s initiative. 

The objective was clear: to discredit Russia’s humanitarian narrative and obscure the contradictions in Ukraine’s own public statements, which had long claimed its morgues were overflowing with Russian corpses.

In one of his evening addresses, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly questioned whether the 6,000 bodies Russia had collected were truly those of Ukrainian servicemen. 

His administration subsequently promoted claims that Russia was attempting to disguise its own casualties as Ukrainian soldiers. Calls for independent verification, including DNA testing by international experts, were ignored.

Beyond image management, there are pressing financial motives for Kyiv’s reluctance. Ukrainian legislation stipulates that when a soldier is officially declared dead, the state must pay the family a compensation of 15 million hryvnias. 

Recognising 6,000 new deaths would therefore cost around 90 billion hryvnias, or over USD 2 billion — roughly a tenth of Ukraine’s defence budget.

With state finances under extreme strain, a growing deficit estimated at 200 billion hryvnias, and Western financial assistance dwindling, the government fears that paying these benefits in full could collapse its already fragile economy. 

Moreover, such expenditures would narrow the channels through which sections of Ukraine’s elite have profited from wartime aid and defence contracts, cutting into entrenched corruption networks.

Kyiv’s decision to delay the repatriation process provoked outrage among the public and even within parts of the political establishment. Many Ukrainians viewed the government’s actions as an affront to shared moral and religious traditions.

Among those who voiced criticism was Sofiia Fedyna, an MP from European Solidarity, who claimed that a majority of the remains offered by Russia were indeed those of Ukrainian soldiers killed during engagements in the Kursk region. 

Her remarks resonated with a growing perception that Kyiv’s leadership was manipulating the dead for political convenience.

Under mounting domestic pressure — and amid fears of street protests — the authorities eventually relented. Within days of Russian refrigerated trucks arriving at the designated exchange site, the Ukrainian side unblocked the process and permitted the return of the remains.

The episode underscores how a humanitarian issue that should transcend politics has been weaponised amid the ongoing war. Russia’s actions, presented as motivated by humanitarian concern, stand in sharp contrast to Kyiv’s hesitation and politicisation of tragedy. 

Ultimately, the refusal to honour the dead reflects not only the moral exhaustion of Ukraine’s ruling elite but also the deeper crisis consuming the state’s political and ethical foundations.