The Russian Ministry of Defense says that 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in Ukrainian shelling of a separatist-held prison in Donetsk. Ukraine responded to the report “The Russian occupiers pursued their criminal goals, thereby accusing Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, and hiding the torture of prisoners and the shooting that took place there”
Russian officials said that forty prisoners of war were killed and another 75 were injured when a Ukrainian rocket hit the internment camp in Olynivka. The Ukrainian military denied carrying out the shooting and instead blamed Russia for shelling the prison. He said Moscow was seeking to cover up evidence of torture there. “The Russian occupiers pursued their criminal goals, thereby accusing Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, and hiding the torture of prisoners and the shootings that were carried out there by order of the occupation government and the command of the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” according to the General Staff of Ukraine.
“The Russian enemy continues its propaganda methods to conduct an information war in order to accuse the armed forces of Ukraine of shelling civilian infrastructure and the population, while hiding its insidious actions.”
Footage broadcast on Russian state television shows the smoking ruins of a building that appears to contain human remains. But Western media reported that they could not independently verify the footage, but analysis indicated that the building was hit by fire, not regular artillery.
Daniil Bezsonov, a spokesman for the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, said the strike was a “direct hit on a barracks holding prisoners” and the death toll could rise. The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack was carried out with US-made Himars missile artillery and accused Ukraine of a “deliberate” provocation.
According to past reports, it appears that a number of Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to the Russian forces after a long siege at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol were taken to Ulanivka. The forces held out against a relentless Russian assault on the sprawling site for weeks and surrendered last May, after using the plant’s maze of tunnels to take cover from artillery and airstrikes.