At least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been killed in an explosion at a prison in Russian-occupied Donetsk, with both Russia and Ukraine accusing each other of carrying out the attack. Russia's defence ministry said 40 prisoners died and 75 were wounded in the strike on the facility in the frontline town of Olenivka, while a spokesman for Russian-backed separatist forces put the death toll at 53. Both accused Ukrainian forces of using US-made Himars rockets.
Ukraine denied responsibility and said it believed about 40 people were killed and 130 injured. The country's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, described the incident as a 'barbaric war crime'. Ukraine's military intelligence said the strike was a 'deliberate act of terrorism', and the domestic security agency, the SBU, said it had intercepted phone calls indicating Russian involvement. Ukraine's prosecutor-general, Andriy Kostin, has opened a war crimes investigation.
Russia, meanwhile, accused Ukraine of targeting the prison to hide the fact that prisoners had been 'tortured and murdered'. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called for a 'strict investigation' and urged the United Nations to condemn the attack, describing the Russian allegations as 'a classic, cynical and elaborate false flag operation'.
Footage broadcast on Russian television showed a building with a hole in the roof, tangled bunk beds, and blood trails. Russian media later published images of what it claimed were fragments from a US Himars rocket, though these were not shown in situ. The SBU said intercepted conversations suggested explosives may have been placed inside the prison, noting that no eyewitnesses reported hearing a missile flying towards the facility.
The Ukrainian troops killed were reportedly among those captured after the fierce fighting for the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol, which fell in May after a three-month siege. The attack raises questions about the conditions of the prisoners' detention and why they had not been moved to a safer location. Establishing responsibility is likely to be highly challenging without independent access to the site.
