Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said on November 2 that bodies had been removed from the town hospital morgue during a humanitarian operation in Russian-occupied Oleshky in the Kherson region. He said the bodies of military personnel and civilians had also been collected in the town and surrounding area.
According to Lubinets, the Ukrainian and Russian sides agreed to transfer the bodies of people whose relatives live in Ukrainian-controlled territory to that territory. He described an agreement for further transfers, not a completed repatriation.
The operation took place during a temporary ceasefire from October 27 to November 1, arranged to deliver aid and evacuate Oleshky residents. Lubinets also said the two sides had agreed not to disclose the number of people evacuated in either direction.
Russia’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said that no precise count of evacuees had been made. She said the previously cited figure of 750 referred to the capacity of the vehicles prepared for the operation, not a confirmed number of people evacuated. In her assessment, the actual number was lower.