The bodies of 541 Ukrainian servicemen who got killed in the war with the Russian occupiers have been returned to Ukraine, Oleh Kotenko, the Commissioner for Missing Persons in Special Circumstances, has said, as quoted by the press centre of the Reintegration Ministry.
Negotiations with Russia were mediated by the Red Cross.
"Negotiations with the aggressor are difficult, but we have already managed to bring back 541 fallen defenders," he said.
He added that 428 bodies had been transported from Mariupol, of which more than 300 were Azovstal defenders.
"We are returning the dead from Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Kharkiv, Luhansk directions - from everywhere," Kotenko noted.
Over 130 women from Azovstal - troops, border guards and medical workers - are being held captive in Russia.
On 10 August, the bodies of 16 fallen defenders of Mariupol were brought to Kyiv.