Ukraine war: Zelensky calls prison strike 'deliberate Russian war crime'
Ukraine war: Zelensky calls prison strike 'deliberate Russian war crime'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the shelling of a prison in the separatist-controlled east 'a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war'.
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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said there were 'more than 50 dead' [SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty-archive]
President said on Friday the shelling of a prison in the separatist-controlled east holding servicemen was a "deliberate Russian war crime" that had claimed more than 50 lives.
"Today I received information about the attack by the occupiers on Olenivka [the prison's location], in the Donetsk region. It is a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war. More than 50 dead," he said in his daily address.
and Moscow-backed separatists had earlier on Friday accused Kyiv's forces of striking the jail, saying dozens of people died and scores were wounded.
Ukraine denied targeting civilian infrastructure or prisoners of war.
Russian television showed what appeared to be destroyed barracks and tangled metal beds.
It also showed blurred images of what looked like human bodies.
The defence ministry said the Ukrainian prisoners of war included members of the Azov battalion, who defended the Azovstal plant in Ukraine's port city of Mariupol.
Russia describes the former paramilitary unit, which has previous links to far-right groups, as a neo-Nazi organisation.
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