By Jeff Childers, Substack, 6/11/25
Finally, Russia Today ran a controversial story this week headlined, “Ukraine’s shame: Why Kiev refuses to take back its dead and wounded.” I don’t usually cite RT, but the basic facts were confirmed in oleaginous articles from AP and Reuters. Ukraine is making a potentially fatal mistake— but it may have very few options.
Under Ukrainian law, each family of a soldier killed in action is entitled to 15 million Ukrainian hryvnias (about $360,000). In the second-round of Istanbul talks two weeks ago, Ukraine and Russia agreed to swap their war dead. Now, refrigerated Russian semis with 6,000 frozen Ukrainian soldiers sit idling on the border, with Kiev refusing their receipt.
The inglorious motive, which Zelensky adamantly denied, appears clear to everyone else. Accepting this single shipment would instantly obligate Ukraine to pay over $2 billion to grieving Ukrainian families. For context, $2 billion is about 10% of Ukraine’s entire 2025 defense budget.
Kiev’s excuse — that it hasn’t yet confirmed the identities of the soldiers, and doesn’t want to be “tricked” — is laughably absurd. Who exactly do they think Russia is trying to return? Russian soldiers? Are they worried Putin snuck a few Wagner guys in for the ride?
Even more ridiculous: what’s the harm in accepting the bodies of your own fallen comrades and then verifying their identities after? That’s how every other nation on Earth handles the fog of war. If, by some miracle of depravity, Russia did try to sneak in fake corpses, it would be a PR bonanza for Ukraine. Zelensky could’ve dragged the remains into the UN chamber and shamed the Kremlin before the world.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for corporate media to ask any of these questions.
Ukraine’s stinginess is bad enough, but the 6,000 dead are telling another story, too. Recently, Zelensky claimed that Ukraine has lost only 43,000 KIA since the start of the war. Russia identified this initial batch of 6,000 as the first shipment just from one operation— Kiev’s ill-fated foray into the Kursk salient.
If they are Ukrainian war dead, which seems almost certain, it finally puts the lie to an outrageous claim about bottom-barrel numbers of Ukrainian KIAs long suspected to be a Pinocchio-level fib. More Ukrainian lies.
Kiev’s ugly foot-dragging on taking back its own war dead could conceivably cost it the war. Ukrainian soldiers — especially new conscripts — are watching. Many already suspect their government is minimizing casualty reports and sending them into meat grinders with little transparency. If they now believe their own state won’t even bring their bodies home, or worse, is intentionally stalling to dodge benefits owed to their families?
Not too good for military morale. “Why die for a country that won’t even admit I’m dead?”
Ukrainians on the home front —mothers, widows, and siblings — already feel the absence of official clarity. What happens if they begin to believe that trucks of their own sons are sitting at the border while the government offers bureaucratic excuses and financial foot-dragging? Public grief could quickly curdle into public rage.
For Russia, this is a propaganda jackpot. They get to crow, “We’re returning the dead with dignity. Ukraine doesn’t even want them back.”
Meanwhile, in the West, taxpayers funding Ukraine wonder why billions are being sent to a regime that refuses to bury its own dead. Even a brief delay constitutes a moral failure that crosses civilizational boundaries and vexes all historical precedent.
Zelensky has survived this long on a purely moral narrative: that Ukraine is the underdog, the noble defender, the modern Sparta holding the line for civilization. But this ugly episode —thousands of fallen soldiers rotting in refrigerated limbo while Kiev dithers— punctures that PR spin like an overfilled balloon. But what can Kiev do? If it takes the 6,000, then its budget will be blasted into smithereens. No money for graft. And if it takes this 6,000, what will it do when the next 6,000 show up?
Russia is watching Kiev’s every move like a starving grizzly eying a fattened deer. Zelensky’s dithering in the headlights shows cowardice and weakness, and reveals right where the pressure point lies.
It’s not a logistical crisis. It’s not even a brief PR crisis. It’s a narrative death spiral with no way out. Critical decisions must be made soon— but what to do?