France “expresses its horror” at accusations of acts of torture against Ukrainian prisoners of war

Following an attack on the Olenivka prison that killed “more than 50 people”, according to the Ukrainian authorities, France expressed this Saturday, in a press release, “its horror at the reports of murders and acts of torture against Ukrainians “. prisoners of war” in this same detention center.

“If this information is confirmed, the perpetrators and all those responsible for such crimes, which flagrantly violate international humanitarian law, will have to answer for their actions. Since war crimes cannot go unpunished, France actively cooperates both with the judicial authorities of Ukraine and with the International Criminal Court”, continued France Diplomatie.

The European Union condemned Friday night “the atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces and their auxiliaries”, in a press release from its chief of diplomacy Josep Borrell that points to both the bombing of the prison and the accusations of torture and castration of a Ukrainian prisoner, a video of which circulated on social networks.

mutual accusations

On Friday night, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, called the shelling of the Olenivka prison in the Donetsk region of the occupied territory of eastern Ukraine a “deliberate Russian war crime.” Initially, it was Moscow that implicated Kyiv, as the Russian investigative committee accused Ukrainian forces of having “fired on the prison where members of the Azov regiment are detained, using US missiles from the Himars system.”

But Ukraine quickly denied targeting civilian infrastructure or prisoners of war, saying the army “fully adheres to the principles and standards of international humanitarian law.”

The Ukrainian General Staff considered that it was therefore a question of “accusing Ukraine of having committed war crimes” and of “disguising the torture of prisoners and the executions” that were “perpetrated” there. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the attack “was carried out by mercenaries from the Wagner division” and “was not coordinated with the leadership” of the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian staff later clarified.