The Azov regiment distinguished itself in the defense of Mariupol, a strategic port in southeastern Ukraine.
Ukraine on Saturday 30 July denounced Russian calls to “hangor inflict anotherhumiliating deathto the fighters of the Ukrainian Azov regiment the day after a strike against a prison where some of them were detained, which killed more than 50 people.
“Read this when they tell you that Russia should not be isolated. There is no difference between Russian diplomats calling for the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war and Russian troops doing so at Olenivka. They are all complicit in these war crimes and must be held accountable.“Ukrainian diplomacy spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said on Twitter.
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He was reacting to the tweet posted on Friday evening in English from the Russian Embassy in the UK which was marked as having “violates Twitter’s hateful conduct policy“, but remains however available as being able to “be of interest to the public“. “Azov fighters deserve to be executed, but not by firing squad, by hanging. They are not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death“, can we read in this tweet.
“Russia is a terrorist state. In the 21st century, only savages and terrorists can say on a diplomatic level that people deserve to be executed by hanging“, for his part reacted on Telegram Andrii Iermak, the chief of staff of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
‘Deliberate war crime’
Ukraine’s president called Friday night a “deliberate Russian war crimethe Friday bombardment of a prison in Olenivka, in the Donetsk region of occupied territory in eastern Ukraine.
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Initially, it was Moscow that implicated kyiv, the Russian investigative committee having accused the Ukrainian forces of having “fired at the prison where members of the Azov regiment are being held, using American projectiles from 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 at the Azovstal steelworks, some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to the Russian army in May. Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubinetsk announced on Saturday that he had asked the Red Cross, which had supervised the withdrawal of defenders from Azovstal, to have access to Olenivka. According to him, the ICRC has “for the momentdidn’t get permission from the Russians. “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 inside“.
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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 called for “an investigationabout what happened in Olenivka.