Bodies of 152 Ukrainian fighters discovered at Azovstal: Moscow

The Russian military says it has found the bodies of 152 Ukrainian fighters in the underground bunkers of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol it captured earlier this month after a protracted siege.

"152 bodies of fallen fighters and soldiers of the Ukrainian armed forces were stored in a container with no longer functioning refrigeration," Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in Moscow on Tuesday.

He added that Russian authorities had yet to receive any request to transfer the dead from the Ukrainian leadership.

Konashenkov said that mines had been discovered underneath the bodies, claiming that the Ukrainian side had probably intended to blow up the container in order to frame Russia for the deaths.