Ukraine says it has been falsely accused of carrying out a rocket attack on a prison camp in the Kremlin-controlled Donetsk region which Russia says left 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war dead.
Russian-backed separatists on Friday claimed that an attack with HIMARS rockets—supplied to Ukrainian forces by the U.S.—had also injured another 75 Ukrainian POWs at the prison in Olenivka.
But Ukrainian officials say that it was in fact Russian forces who bombarded the facility. “The Russian army fired artillery at prison in Olenovka, that is their attempt to hide the evidence of torture and executions of Ukrainian soldiers, war prisoners,” Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, told The Daily Beast. “That’s how Putin’s colleagues acted, fascists who tried to hide the evidence of the Holocaust.”
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Danilov’s comments followed a statement issued by the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine earlier on Friday. It too said that Russian forces were to blame for the strike. “The Russian occupants, thus, pursued their criminal goals—accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes,’” the statement read. It added that the Russian allegations were designed to hide “their own insidious actions” with “outright lies and provocation.”
Suspicions have also been raised by Russia’s movement of American POWs just before the strike. Lois “Bunny” Drueke said her son, Alex Drueke, had been moved along with fellow U.S. captive Andy Huynh from one penal facility in the Donetsk region to another unspecified prison ahead of the rocket strike. It's not clear if Drueke and Huynh—who were captured in Kharkiv in June—were in the same prison camp that was struck but they are believed to have been in the same area until Thursday when they were mysteriously moved on the eve of the attack.
Dianna Shaw, Drueke’s aunt, told The Daily Beast on Friday that the family was “elated” after he informed them in a call that they had been moved to a new facility and were no longer in solitary confinement.
“Then we learned of the awful attack on the Olenivka detention center and that took the wind right out of our sails. The State Dept. has advised us they are working diligently to confirm Alex’s and Andy’s current location. We are hoping [self-proclaimed leader of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic Denis] Pushilin’s statement that no foreigners were at that facility is accurate. Our hearts are broken for the Ukrainian families of the POWs killed and injured there,” she said.
Tweeting on Friday, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said of the prison bombing, “Russia has committed another petrifying war crime by shelling a correctional facility in the occupied Olenivka where it held Ukrainian POWs.” He added: “I call on all partners to strongly condemn this brutal violation of international humanitarian law and recognize Russia as a terrorist state.”
Reports suggest that among the Ukrainian prisoners at the facility were fighters captured in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol after months of bitter fighting. The Azov Battalion and others held the site for three months in the face of relentless Russian bombardment.
Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers were detained and taken to Russian-controlled territories in the east of Ukraine, including Donetsk.
“It is with deep sadness that we are forced to confirm the information about the attack on the colony in Olenivka, where prisoners of the ‘Azov’ regiment are kept,” a group that supports Ukrainian prisoners of war wrote on Telegram on Friday. The organization, called Azov Angels, added, “We are finding out the names of the dead and injured through our channels. The International Committee of the Red Cross also went to the place.”
Read it at Associated Press
