July 28 marks the anniversary of the terrorist attack at Correctional Colony No. 120 in occupied Olenivka, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed on the night of July 29, 2022. The Donetsk Oblast Military Administration recalled the tragedy.
"On the night of July 29, 2022, at the territory of Correctional Colony No. 120 in Olenivka, russians carried out a terrorist attack aimed at the brutal murder of the unarmed and exhausted defenders of Mariupol, who had at that time been held in captivity for more than two months", - the statement reads.
According to the Oblast Military Administration, on July 27, around 200 fighters from the Azov Brigade were transferred to a hastily renovated building in the colony's industrial zone. The following evening, they were assembled, checked against a roster, and taken into the barracks one by one, with orders not to leave the building.
At around 11:15 p.m., the first explosion occurred outside the colony, and around midnight a second explosion took place inside the barracks. Following the blast, the building partially collapsed and caught fire. The prisoners of war who were at the epicenter of the explosion and fire were killed, while the others suffered severe injuries and burns. Despite the victims' cries for help, the colony administration neither extinguished the fire nor provided medical assistance.
Only three hours after the explosion did the occupation administration allow prisoners of war with medical experience to reach the victims so they could assist those who had managed to escape the barracks on their own. The occupiers began evacuating the wounded only in the morning, using cargo trucks. According to the Oblast Military Administration, some of the seriously wounded died on the way.
As a result of the terrorist attack, around 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed, while more than 130 were injured, approximately 70 of them seriously. According to the organizers of the memorial events, more than 90 Ukrainian defenders remain in russian captivity to this day.
The administration recalled that despite the protections afforded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, russia did not allow international organizations access to the site of the tragedy and, according to the Ukrainian side, attempted to conceal evidence of the crime.
In 2023, the United Nations dissolved its fact-finding mission into the Olenivka explosion because it did not receive guarantees of access to the site. Since then, no independent international investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy has been conducted.
On July 27, 2024, the head of Olenivka Correctional Colony and his first deputy were formally notified of suspicion on charges of cruel treatment of prisoners of war combined with intentional murder.