KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s military denied carrying out an attack on a prison in separatist-held territory that Russia’s defence ministry said killed 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war on Friday, and blamed it on Russian forces.
“The armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out targeted artillery shelling of a correctional institution in the settlement of Olenivka, Donetsk oblast, where Ukrainian prisoners were also held,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement.
“In this way, the Russian occupiers pursued their criminal goals – to accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, as well as to hide the torture of prisoners and executions…”
Russia has denied involvement in war crimes in what it calls its “special military operation” to protect Russian speakers and root out dangerous nationalists. Ukraine says Moscow is waging an unprovoked war of conquest.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
