Russia returned to Ukraine the bodies of 501 soldiers on Friday, Ukrainian authorities said. The move appeared to be the biggest repatriation of war dead since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Most of the soldiers were killed in the fighting in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, around the city of Avdiivka. After a long and grueling battle, Russian forces captured the city in February, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.
Law enforcement agencies and forensic experts will identify the victims, Ukrainian authorities said. The bodies will then be returned to family members for burial.
The repatriation came two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented his "victory plan" to European Union leaders and NATO defense ministers. Ukraine's allies are giving it qualified support, with one leader saying it will be reconsidered after the U.S. election next month.
Zelenskyy's plan, which he unveiled to Ukraine's parliament Wednesday, calls first for an unconditional invitation to join NATO, along with the deployment of a non-nuclear deterrent to Russian aggression, among other points. He maintains the plan could end the war no later than next year.
While NATO allies and leadership insist Ukraine's future is with NATO, a formal invitation to join the alliance has not been made. NATO allies have said the nation cannot become a member while it is at war, and the focus has been on providing the support it needs to win.
The NATO-Ukraine Council met late Thursday, following Zelenskyy's presentation to the defense ministerial meeting. At a Friday news conference in Brussels, new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the focus of that meeting was "to get massive military aid into Ukraine" from Western allies.
"Obviously, we all know that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, so the question is exactly when," Rutte said. "But that was not the main issue of the debate last night."
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asked about Zelenskyy's plan during a briefing Friday in Brussels. "The victory plan is President Zelenskyy's plan, and we're going to do everything that we can and provide security assistance to support the president as he tries to accomplish his objectives," Austin said.
Austin added, "It is not my position to evaluate publicly his plan. We have been supporting him by providing security assistance in a major way for over two and a half years. We are going to continue to do that."
U.S. President Joe Biden was in Berlin on Friday for meetings with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France, and support for Ukraine was a focus of their talks. Biden called on the Western allies of Ukraine to "sustain our resolve" in supporting Ukraine.
The president said the "cost" of supporting Ukraine is "heavy," but that cost is no match "in comparison to the cost of living in a world where aggression prevails, where large states attack and bully smaller ones simply because they can."
On the sidelines of that meeting, U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the White House was still reviewing Zelenskyy's plan.
He said the U.S. supported "President Zelenskyy's plan for a just peace. It's critical that whatever that peace looks like, it has to be acceptable to him and to the Ukrainian people."
Ukrainian media reported that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke to reporters Friday following European Union talks in Brussels and said there was "no consensus" on the plan among EU leaders. He said it was difficult to tell how realistic it was because "much depends on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election."
Tusk added that the plan would be reassessed after the U.S. elections next month. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has indicated he does not support continuing U.S. military aid for Ukraine, at least not at current levels.
Also Friday, Ukraine's military said Russian forces Thursday suffered their second deadliest day since the war began.
On its account on the Facebook social media platform, the General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces reported 1,530 Russian casualties since Thursday.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
