Ukraine returns bodies of 503 fallen defenders

Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported the information.

Among the returned fallen defenders of Ukraine:

• 403 from the Donetsk sector,
• 12 from the Luhansk sector,
• 57 from the Zaporizhzhia sector,
• 31 from morgues located on Russian territory.

The Coordination Headquarters noted that the return of the fallen soldiers was made possible through the joint efforts of the Coordination Headquarters staff, the Central Civil-Military Cooperation Department of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Joint Center of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretariat of the Commissioner for Missing Persons under Special Circumstances, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, and other structures within Ukraine's Security and Defense Sector.

"Together with expert institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the identities of the deceased will be established as quickly as possible," the Coordination Headquarters added.

• At the end of November, the bodies of 502 fallen defenders were returned to Ukrainian-controlled territory.