A year after the terrorist attack in Olenivka: what about the investigation and who is involved in the murder

As a result of the terrorist act, more than 50 people died.

On the night of July 29, 2022, the Russian occupying army blew up the barracks created with captured "Azovs" in the occupied Olenivka of the Donetsk region. As a result of the terrorist act, more than half a hundred people died, and another 130 people were injured. Russia traditionally blamed Ukraine for the crime. Allegedly, the Armed Forces struck from the HIMARS system. However, the Prosecutor General's Office named Russian thermobaric weapons as the cause of the explosion.

New details of the terrorist attack of the Russian Federation in Olenivka

The author of the investigation, the journalist of the Media Initiative for Human Rights, Maria Klymyk, recently revealed new details about the murder of Ukrainian defenders in No. 120. According to her, the Ukrainians in the colony heard two explosions: one outside, and the other inside the barrack at approximately 23:30-24:00.

The servicemen who were in the main part of the barracks, which was hit by the blast wave, died immediately. Later, a fire broke out, and therefore the bodies of these people were burned. In another part of the building, people were seriously injured but survived.

Already after the terrorist attack, the security of the institution opened fire on those who got out of the barracks. The Russians also did not help the wounded soldiers of the Armed Forces to escape or put out the fire. All this was done by the military themselves, dressing the wounds with the remnants of the clothes they were wearing.

According to human rights defenders, 6 hours passed from the moment of the explosion to the time when the people of Azov began to be evacuated from there.

Evidence against the explorer of colony No. 120

The Ukrainian Security Service collected evidence on the former head of the occupation "Volnovaska Correctional Colony" - known as Olenivska. He turned out to be a local resident who, until 2014, was the head of the search department in the Horli district department of the disbanded militia of the Donetsk region. At the beginning of 2022, the perpetrator became the head of the Olenivska colony. He headed it until the end of July.

The former head of the colony is suspected of involvement in mass abuse of Ukrainian prisoners of war in prison. In particular, more than a hundred such cases are known. For torture, soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were taken to a specially created "disciplinary detention center". There, they were subjected to various types of physical violence and psychological pressure, accompanied by constant threats of "slow" murder.

Statement of the Prosecutor General's Office

The Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General emphasizes that the explosion in the correctional colony was caused by the use of a reactive thermobaric grenade launcher.

However, a year after the tragedy, the exact number of dead Ukrainian prisoners of war is still unknown, says the deputy head of the department for countering crimes committed in the context of armed conflict, OG Taras Semkiv.

"I can inform you that 52 bodies of our fallen heroes have been identified out of 57 that were returned to us by the aggressor state. The identification of the other five bodies is still ongoing, but we are not sure that these are all bodies," he said.

UN position

25 days after the tragedy, the UN created a group to investigate the terrorist attack in Olenivka. However, in January 2023, they said that a mission to investigate the terrorist attack in Olenivka, where Ukrainian soldiers were killed, is possible. After all, the Russian Federation did not grant permission to enter the territory of the colony.

For his part, Dmytro Lubinets, the representative of the Verkhovna Rada on human rights, emphasized the other day: Kyiv wants the Organization to resume this mission. According to him, the Ukrainian side, for its part, is ready to provide its expert research and everything necessary to establish the truth.

At the same time, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, denied Moscow's statement that the fighters in Olenivka were killed by a Himars missile.