The Russian army has accused the Ukrainian forces of having bombed a prison controlled by pro-Russian separatists, in the night from Friday to Thursday, in Donbass. The attack reportedly killed 40 Ukrainian POWs and wounded 75 others.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that fire from a Himars artillery system, supplied to Ukraine by the United States, hit a prison in the Donetsk region, near the city of Olenivka (Elenovka in Russian).
“This outrageous provocation is aimed at frightening Ukrainian soldiers and dissuading them from surrendering,” the ministry said. Russian public television broadcast images presented as those of the burned barracks, without showing victims. AFP was unable to verify these statements from independent sources.
The prison housed members of the Azov regiment.
The Russian Ministry of Defense specifies that the prison housed in particular members of the Azov regiment, which distinguished itself in defending the city of Mariupol against the Russian army and which Moscow accuses of being a neo-Nazi formation.
After weeks-long siege and resistance at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters surrendered in May. The Russian authorities had indicated that they would be imprisoned in Olenivka.
Source: BFM TV
