Kyiv, Ukraine. Two years ago, an explosion ripped through the Russian-controlled Olenivka prison barracks, killing more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war and injuring dozens.
The Associated Press interviewed more than a dozen survivors, investigators and relatives of the dead and it is estimated that there are 120 missing is still captive. They believe that all the evidence described points directly to Russia as the culprit. The AP also obtained a United Nations internal analysis who found the same thing. Russia accused Ukraine of attacking its own men with missiles supplied by the United States.
Of the 193 Ukrainians in the barracks, less than two dozen managed to return home. More than 50 dead the night of July 29, 2022.
Here’s what you should know from AP’s reporting:
On the morning of July 27, 2022, Russian guards rounded up a group of prisoners and took them to an industrial section of the colony, away from the other five prisoner-of-war barracks. They were taken to a tin-roofed cinder block building with 100 bunk beds, no mattresses and a hastily dug toilet, several survivors told the AP.
That day, the guards dug trenches. The next day, they moved the guard post and put on bulletproof vests and helmets, something they had not done before and unlike the rest of the Olenivka staff.
When the explosion occurred during the night, the fire devastated the building. One witness recalled that the guards stood there laughing, throwing rags and flashlights at the terrified Ukrainians.
The survivors were isolated starting the next day from the rest of the prisoners of war in the camp.
The UN’s internal analysis said their isolation was aimed at preventing survivors from speaking to others in the colony about what happened that night because some prisoners had access to mobile phones and had direct contact with Ukraine. It also left them unaware that Russia and Ukraine were blaming each other as a UN Security Council meeting loomed.
According to the UN analysis, other Ukrainian prisoners were sent to the bombed barracks and ordered to remove the debris and remaining bodies. Two hours later, that group was sent to a nearby hangar, and some saw camouflaged men carrying boxes of ammunition to the explosion site and placing HIMARS fragments on a nearby blue bench.
Soon Russian officials arrived, accompanied by Russian journalists whose images of twisted and charred bunks, fragments of HIMARS and bodies lying in the sun spread around the world.
The Ukrainians in the nearby hangar said that after everyone left, the camouflaged men put everything back in the boxes and left.
The UN Secretary General announced that carry out your own research, but negotiations to access the site were long and ultimately unsuccessful. The mission was disbanded on January 5, 2023, without ever having traveled to Ukraine.
the separate Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, which had been based in the country since the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, did not wait. The team reviewed Russian television testimonies from 16 survivors taken to the hospital, examined public footage from the scene and analyzed 20 statements made by Russian officials who visited the prison.
Their conclusion: Russia planned and executed the attack.
Some of the evidence was gradually incorporated into broader UN reports on the war. In the end it was concluded that the attack occurred from east to west. Russian territory is located east of occupied Donetsk. But the UN stopped short of publicly blaming Russia.
There are no further active international investigations into the attack and a Ukrainian investigation is one of tens of thousands of war crimes investigations there. This raises broader questions about whether those who committed crimes in occupied areas will ever be able to face justice.
According to Taras Semkiv of the war crimes unit of the Ukrainian prosecutor general, an investigation is underway in Ukraine. The challenge now is to identify the weapon used, in the hope of being able to determine who ordered the attack. Semkiv said the investigation has narrowed it down to three possibilities: artillery, planted explosives or a grenade launcher.
Semkiv said no international investigators have requested information from the Prosecutor General’s Office since the deaths in Olenivka, including the disbanded U.N. fact-finding mission. He said initial optimism about the mission faded as soon as it became clear they would not investigate at all if there was no access to the prison.
Relatives of those missing from bombed barracks say they are now alone in their search for answers.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
