TE24 International Desk:
Moscow and Kyiv accused each other on Friday of bombing a prison holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-controlled territory, which Russia said killed 40 prisoners and eight prison staff.
Russia’s defense ministry said the Ukrainian attack was carried out with US-supplied long-range missiles as a “terrible provocation” designed to stop troops from surrendering, AFP reported.
It said the dead included Ukrainian forces who had laid down their arms after repelling Moscow’s attack on the sprawling Azovstal steel works in Mariupol. The claims came as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited a port in southern Ukraine to oversee a ship loaded with grain for export under a UN-backed plan to end the food crisis. This plan is aimed at getting millions of tons of grain from Ukraine, which is stuck in the world market due to the Russian naval blockade.
After the attack on the prison, Russian state television showed that barracks and tangled metal beds had been destroyed but no casualties were reported. Ukraine’s military denied carrying out the attack, saying its forces “did not fire missiles and artillery at the area. Olenivka settlement.
It instead blamed Russian invasion forces for “targeted artillery shelling” at the detention facility, saying it was being used “to accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’ as well as to cover up the torture and execution of detainees.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter, “Occupied ” Olenivka committed another horrific war crime by shelling a correctional facility where it housed Ukrainian prisoners of war.
In May, Ukrainian forces ended a week-long siege of Azovstal, with about 2,500 fighters surrendering after their initial resistance stopped. Moscow state media reported that several officers, including the controversial Azov Regiment officer, had been brought to Russia.
Qiu said he captured thousands of Russian soldiers during the invasion and prosecuted some on suspicion of war crimes. A Ukrainian court on Friday commuted a Russian soldier’s life sentence in May for a single manslaughter in the country’s first war crimes trial and instead sentenced the soldier to 15 years in prison.
