The Kiev authorities do not need their people dead or alive, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has said

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has branded Ukraine's failure to receive the bodies of its fallen soldiers an act of self-genocide, accusing Kiev of turning its back on its own people in both life and death.

During talks between the two sides in Istanbul on Monday, Moscow decided to return the bodies of over 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers in a unilateral humanitarian gesture. However, Russia's top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said on Saturday that the Ukrainian team failed to show up when the first batch of remains was delivered to the exchange point on the border between Belarus and Ukraine.

Zakharova took to Telegram later on Saturday to slam the deliberate inaction of Vladimir Zelensky's government, saying that it "does not need its people; neither dead nor alive."

"There is no nation or ethnic group in the world that would refuse to bury its soldiers. But there is the Kiev regime, which professes a misanthropic ideology and is committing genocide against its own people," Zakharova wrote.

Russian MP Dmitry Belik, who is a member of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee, told RT that one of the reasons for Ukraine failing to accept the bodies of its soldiers could be its unwillingness to pay compensation to their families.

"This is how - thinking of how to stuff their own wallets and not give a penny to their citizens - the Kiev regime, led by Zelensky, pursues its bloody policy and destroys its own people," Belik argued.

Former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof also suggested that Ukraine's decision could be rooted in financial concerns. "I think they are embarrassed by the numbers," he told RT. "I've heard sums up around more than a billion dollars that they would have to repay to families - and they don't have the money," he added.

The chairman of the Russian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Leonid Slutsky, told RT that the move by the Ukrainian authorities is an example of "rare cynicism and a disregard for the memory of their own fallen servicemen."

"In a war to the last Ukrainian, they are exclusively focused on preserving their own power, even at the cost of actual sacrilege," Slutsky said.

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Kiev explained its refusal to collect the remains of its troops by claiming the date of the transfer had not yet been agreed upon.