According to reports by Russia's RT, on June 11th, under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the first round of exchanges for fallen soldiers' remains between Russia and Ukraine was completed. Russia returned 1,212 Ukrainian military remains, while Ukraine only handed over 27 Russian military bodies. This exchange began with the initial negotiations at the start of the month. During the second round of negotiations in Istanbul on June 3rd, Turkey and the Red Cross facilitated an agreement, where both sides finalized a preliminary framework to carry out large-scale exchanges of remains and prisoner swaps in the future. The ideal value set during the negotiations was for each side to return 6,000 remains, done in batches, with roughly equal numbers. Russia cooperated highly, stating they had "already prepared thousands of Ukrainian military remains," while Ukraine appeared very cautious, giving the impression of reluctantly agreeing, as Russia claimed it could provide 6,000 Ukrainian military remains—whether they actually had them or not was another matter. They couldn't lose momentum during the negotiation process, so they agreed. [Image description unavailable] Russia caught Ukraine off guard. Ukraine seemed to think there was no problem in initially agreeing, as this exchange wouldn't happen quickly. However, Russia took advantage of Ukraine's inability to conduct an equal exchange. Shortly after the negotiation, Russia immediately brought 1,212 Ukrainian military remains to the Belarus border, demanding Ukraine accept them. This put Ukraine in a difficult position for three reasons: Firstly, Russia was well-prepared; accepting these more than 1,200 remains would mean Russia could send more batches soon, and Ukraine would have to accept thousands of their own military remains, requiring a significant amount of condolence payments; Secondly, Ukraine didn't have enough remains to exchange with Russia's military, which would expose the fact that Ukraine suffered greater losses; Thirdly, given the second point, it would make Ukraine's conscription work even harder. So, Ukraine didn't immediately accept these 1,212 bodies but instead started bickering with Russia. [Image description unavailable] Ukraine couldn't delay. But Russia was already prepared, launching a propaganda offensive, criticizing Ukraine for being cold-blooded and failing to pay condolence money, and began releasing some identity information of the remains, applying internal pressure from Ukrainians. Ukraine had no choice but to agree to the exchange, eventually hastily handing over only 27 remains. Ukraine's explanation was that they were still identifying more Russian remains. Russia seemed not to believe this reason, saying they could exchange first and identify later. Of course, there are some objective reasons as well. For example, Ukraine has been on the defensive; after killing Russian soldiers, it is indeed difficult to retrieve the bodies, and sometimes even the bodies of comrades-in-arms have to be abandoned. Another factor is that Ukraine cannot hand over all the remains at once, even if it looks bad, they need to keep some as a fallback for subsequent transactions. No matter how many they can offer, it counts as a bargaining chip. However, the ratio of 27 to 1,212 is too extreme, clearly showing that Ukraine's personnel losses are much greater than Russia's. [Image description unavailable] Russia's strategy Looking back, this round of remains exchange was essentially a strategy of Russia. The term "strategy" means it is visible and predictable, but one cannot avoid it. What made Ukraine embarrassed wasn't just this exchange, there might be several more rounds to come. Although the second round of remains exchange hasn't started yet, the Red Cross is already coordinating the details of the next batch of exchanges. Ukraine低调ly stated that they will continue to complete identity verification to ensure the accuracy of each remains. However, no matter how much verification is done, it cannot hide the gap in quantity. Some Ukrainian military officials hinted that Ukraine may not have more than 1,000 Russian remains, meaning that even if all are handed over, it won't surpass the number of remains returned by Russia in the first batch. Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7514850711436362280/ Disclaimer: This article represents the author's personal views. Please express your opinions by clicking the 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' buttons below.