Two years after an explosion killed at least 54 Ukrainian prisoners of war and injured over 150 more at a penal colony in Russian-occupied Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast on July 28-29, 2022, no one has been held accountable as Russia continues to block investigation efforts.
Russia has not only prevented all efforts by the international community to independently investigate the attack but also contaminated evidence at the site, according to a new report by the United Nations (U.N.) published on July 25.
Prisoners of war are protected under international humanitarian law which requires their humane treatment by the detaining side, the report says. Any abuse should be transparently investigated and prosecuted — a law that the Russian government had systematically broken since the beginning of its full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian authorities have called the Olenivka attack a deliberate Russian war crime, saying Russia either hit the prison with artillery or blew it up from inside.
Kyiv said that days before the attack, Russians deliberately put Ukrainian members of the Azov Regiment, who were captured in Mariupol and were awaiting a prisoner exchange, to a separate part of the prison building that was later destroyed in the explosion.
Russia has accused Ukraine of attacking the prison with HIMARS, a U.S.-made high-precision rocket system first deployed by the Ukrainian army a month before the attack.
The U.N. launched a fact-finding mission to uncover the circumstances of the massacre but disbanded it in January 2023 "in the absence of conditions required for the deployment of the mission to the site."
However, after analyzing the photographic evidence and interviewing over 50 survivors, the U.N. dismissed Russia's claim that the Olenivka prison explosion was caused by a Ukrainian HIMARS rocket in a report released on Oct. 4.
Moreover, the report said that “the pattern of structural damage appeared consistent with a projected ordnance having travelled with an east-to-west trajectory.”
Those who returned from captivity spoke about the inhumane conditions of detention, hunger, and torture in Olenivka prison. The survivors of the attack said that no effort was made by the Russian captors to rescue and treat the wounded.
As the latest statement by the U.N. said, “the lack of accountability for the deaths and injuries at the penal colony in Olenivka fits into the broader context of widespread and routine torture of Ukrainian POWs.”
“The Russian authorities continue to subject POWs to deplorable conditions of detention, deprive them of healthcare, and allow limited or no contact with family and the outside world,” the statement read.
The Azov Regiment’s press service issued a statement calling to share the information about the tragedy, as “the Russians rely on the short memory of the world community, on forgetting its crimes and their own propaganda” to avoid punishment.
“Wounded Azov men were carrying the bodies of their brothers. Those who could be saved were left to die by the occupiers,” the statement said.
“Olenivka is a crime against humanity, a violation of all possible rules of warfare and treatment of prisoners of war.”
The Kyiv Independent
