British Ambassador to Ukraine calls for ‘investigation’ into what happened in Olenivka
The President of Ukraine called Friday night a “deliberate Russian war crime” the Friday bombardment of a prison in Olenivka, Donetsk Oblast, occupied territory in eastern Ukraine.
Initially, it was Moscow that implicated kyiv, the Russian investigation committee having accused the Ukrainian forces of having “fired on the prison where the members of the Azov regiment are held, using American projectiles of the Himars system” (multiple rocket launchers). The Azov regiment distinguished itself in the defense of Mariupol, a strategic port in southeastern Ukraine. After long weeks of siege and resistance on the Azovstal steel site, some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to the Russian army in May.
Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubinets said on Saturday that he had asked the Red Cross, which had overseen the withdrawal of defenders from Azovstal, for access to Olenivka. According to him, the ICRC has not ” for the moment “ did not get permission from the Russians. He said on national television:
Currently we can only analyze the video we have. First, this barracks was built separately – for us this is an indicator that this was a premeditated Russian military operation. According to preliminary data, we assume that the explosion occurred indoors.
According to him, this version is confirmed by the fact that “The nearby barracks were not damaged, not even the windows were broken. Likewise, by a miracle, the Russian soldiers were not injured”, he continued. British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons wrote in a tweet:
This appears to be part of an increasingly disturbing pattern of the worst kinds of human rights violations, and possibly war crimes, being committed with impunity in occupied eastern Ukraine.