On Friday morning, a bombardment hit barracks in Olenivka prison, in the Russian-occupied part of Donbass, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were detained, having defended the Azovstal factory in Mariupol. At least 53 of them were killed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the facts ” Russian war crime “, while Moscow blames Ukraine.
With our correspondent in kyiv, Stephane Siohan
The images circulating in the Telegram channels are really chilling. Dozens of dismembered, charred bodies on the site of a penitentiary center where prisoners of war from Azovstal had been transferred, to whom the International Committee of the Red Cross had no access.
Very quickly, the Russian side incriminated a Ukrainian bombardment carried out with American Himars missiles, aimed at erasing the crimes of the Azov battalion. ” This scandalous provocation aims to frighten Ukrainian soldiers and dissuade them from surrendering “, assured the Russian Ministry of Defense.
torture
But the Ukrainian army and the Association of Families of Azovstal have denounced a Russian war crime aimed at erasing the traces of torture and executions on Ukrainian prisoners.
Any independent investigation will be impossible in Olenivka on the territory of the self-proclaimed Republic of Donetsk. But this carnage comes against a backdrop where in recent hours several other Russian war crimes have been documented, including an absolutely gruesome authenticated video of a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian POW with a knife before shooting him dead. coldly.
► To read also: Moscow accuses kyiv of having bombed a Ukrainian prison camp