Why Ukraine collects the bodies of Russian soldiers?

Army volunteers helped collect 60 bodies in the northeastern Kharkiv region, which Russian forces had pushed back in recent weeks, and piled the bodies into a refrigerated train car.

The bodies are sometimes used in prisoner exchange efforts and at other times in Ukrainian body exchanges, said Anton Ivannikov, commander of the Military-Civil Cooperation Branch of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which coordinates these efforts, explaining that the bodies of high-ranking officials may be of particular value in the exchange.

“We collect all documents, all credit cards. Anything that would help us identify the body,” including tattoos and DNA, Ivannikov added.

He said the bodies would be taken by train to Kyiv, where the negotiating team is based.

Efforts to collect the bodies became possible after the Russian forces were pushed back until Kharkiv was largely out of Russian artillery range.

In a recent effort to collect the bodies in the village of Mala Rohan, east of the city of Kharkiv, volunteers using ropes to pull the bodies of two Russian soldiers from a well between houses badly damaged by the bombing, according to Reuters.

At least one body was handcuffed, which Ivannikov said was an indication that they might have been punished as dissidents.

While the Ukrainian army is collecting corpses in the vicinity of Kharkiv, about 240 km to the southeast, its forces are repelling intense attacks in the Donbass region in the east of the country.