Russia has returned another 1.200 bodies it says belong to Ukrainians killed in the war, Ukrainian authorities said, as fighting continued and Russia said it had taken control of a village in the Donetsk region.
The repatriations are being carried out after two rounds of direct peace talks in Istanbul that resulted in agreements on the return of prisoners and the bodies of the dead, but did not bring visible progress in ending Russia's war against Ukraine.
This comes ahead of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Alberta, Canada, which Kiev expects will bring tougher Western sanctions against Moscow, including a lower price cap on Russian oil exports.
"Another 1.200 bodies that the Russian side claims belong to Ukrainian citizens, including soldiers, have been returned to Ukraine," the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Telegram on June 15.
Authorities will work to identify the body, it said.
The total number of bodies sent from Russia to Ukraine has now risen to 4.012. Russia reported that it has received a total of 27 Russian soldiers from Ukraine so far.
According to Russian state media citing unnamed sources, Moscow did not take any bodies on June 15th.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war and remains of citizens several times since talks in Istanbul on May 16 and June 2, but Moscow has rejected calls from Kiev and the West for a ceasefire, and the fighting has continued for nearly 40 months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Russia and Ukraine also exchanged prisoners several times before the Istanbul talks, with little or no impact on the level of hostilities.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on June 15 that Russian forces had taken control of Malinivka, a village in Donetsk Oblast, where some of the fiercest fighting has taken place. Russia is seeking to occupy all of Donetsk, one of four regions in mainland Ukraine that Putin falsely claims are part of Russia.
The ministry also said its forces had carried out a successful overnight missile strike on a refinery in the city of Kremenchuk that it said supplies fuel to Ukrainian forces in the Donetsk region. It gave no details, and the Russian claims could not be verified.
In addition, the Ministry said that Russian air defenses had shot down 128 Ukrainian drones and two guided missiles in the previous 24 hours.
The governor of the Russian region of Tatarstan said a Ukrainian drone strike hit a car factory in the city of Yelabuga on June 15, killing one worker and wounding 13 others.
Kiev and independent media have identified Yelabuga, about 1.400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, as the location of a Russian drone assembly facility, and the area has been hit several times in the past.
The accuracy of Governor Rustam Minnikhanov's statement could not be independently confirmed. There was no immediate comment from authorities in Ukraine, which has targeted military bases and weapons facilities deep inside Russia with drone strikes.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia launched at least 183 attack drones and 11 missiles overnight, and that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed 167 missiles. "The strike was mainly aimed at the Poltava region, especially Kremenchuk," he said on social media.
"Moscow has been doing this for four years and is constantly increasing the number of strikes. That is why it is so important that all decisions on tightening sanctions against Russia are made in the coming weeks," Zelensky said.
"We need price caps that will stop this war. We need sanctions against Russian banks and the financial sector that will hit really hard. We also need to fight sanctions evasion schemes," he said.
"The United States, the European Union and the G7 countries have the power to make this happen."
The leaders are headed to Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies for the June 7-15 G17 summit - of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan - which could now be dominated by heavy fighting between Israel and Iran.
European Union officials hope that the G7 countries will agree on new sanctions against Russia at the summit, including an attempt to reduce its oil revenues by lowering the price cap on Russian crude to $45 a barrel from the current $60.
Zelensky plans to attend and meet with US President Donald Trump, who has been seeking to mediate an end to Russia's war against Ukraine since the start of his second term in January, and has also been trying to improve relations with the Kremlin.
While bilateral meetings between the leaders are possible on June 15th, the official summit program begins on June 16th.
Trump has threatened to impose additional sanctions on Russia if he determines that Moscow does not want peace, but has not yet taken that step and has said he may also punish Ukraine if the parties do not make progress towards peace soon.
Following the phone call on June 14, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that Putin "feels, as I do, that this war between Israel and Iran needs to end, to which I explained that his war needs to end too."
Bonus video:
