Olenivka

Latest news on the Olenivka prison, which was destroyed on 29 July 2022, killing 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) and leaving 75 wounded. The prisoners were mainly soldiers from the Azovstal complex, the last Ukrainian stronghold in the siege of Mariupol. Both Ukrainian and Russian authorities accused each other of the attack on the prison. The Ukrainian side laid the blame on the Russians. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) released recordings of taped telephone conversations between Russian soldiers, which suggested that the Russians had planted an explosive inside the building. The SBU added that from available video evidence, some windows were left intact and that no eyewitness accounts mention any shelling or sounds that would have normally accompanied it, which also suggests that no rocket had struck the detention facility. According to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense Intelligence Directorate, the explosion was carried out by the Wagner Group, a Russian government-backed private military company accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria, and Ukraine, but without prior consultation with the Russian defence ministry.

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