As of February 18, 563 deceased Ukrainian soldiers were identified by DNA tests in Ukraine, as UNN reported citing Head of Healthcare Committee and MP Olha Bohomolets.
“As of February 18, 2,175 samples of the unidentified bodies of 973 persons were stored in the database of DNA profiles. 563 persons out of them were identified thank to the comparison of the DNA profiles of the relatives, who are looking for the missing relatives. 410 persons are still unidentified,” the MP reported.
She noted that not all the relatives of missing people gave samples of DNA; there are only 1,654 samples in the database.
“There is a high probability that part of the unidentified remains of bodies belongs to the representatives of the opposite side, which holds the war against us. The relatives of that side, who are looking for their missing people, also have the possibility to give the DNA samples for identification in Ukraine. It is a gesture of the goodwill to implement the humanitarian plan on the decrease of the tension between the sides of the conflict,” Bohomolets noted.
Earlier it was reported that more than 300 soldiers of Ukraine's Armed Forces died in Donbas remain to be unidentified.
The DNA testing allows establishing the personality of a deceased person by the comparison of the DNA profiles of the corpses' fragments and the relatives' data. The State Research Forensic Center of the Interior Ministry holds the database.