Zelenskyy condemns 'deliberate Russian war crime' after POW bombing
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Friday's shelling of a prisoner of war camp that left more than 50 people dead a "deliberate Russian war crime."
The strike on the Olenivka prison, where Ukrainian POWs were being detained in separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine, was "a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder", the Ukrainian leader said.
The death toll climbed during the day on Friday with pro-Russian separatist authorities in the Donetsk region saying 53 people were killed, in an attack Moscow says was carried out by Ukrainian forces.
The Russian Investigative Committee accused Ukrainian forces of "firing on the prison where the members of the Azov battalion are being held, using American Himars system projectiles," an accusation vehemently denied by Kyiv.
The Azov regiment had distinguished itself in the defence of Mariupol, but some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters surrendered to the Russian army in May after long weeks of siege and resistance. Moscow announced the fighters would be imprisoned in Olenivka.
Ukraine says it did not target civilian infrastructure or prisoners of war, assuring that its army "fully adheres to the principles and norms of international humanitarian law."
The Ukrainian General Staff think Russian attacked the prison, and then blamed it on Ukraine, in order to accuse Kyiv of committing war crimes and to "cover up the torture of prisoners and executions" that had been "perpetrated" there.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, the attack "was carried out by mercenaries from the Wagner division" and "was not coordinated with the leadership" of the Russian Defence Ministry, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
Russian state television broadcast images of charred barracks and
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