LAST UPDATE | 29 Jul 2022
MOSCOW AND KYIV have accused each other of bombing a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-held territory, with Russia saying 40 prisoners and eight prison staff were killed.
Russia’s defence ministry said the Ukrainian strikes were carried out with US-supplied long-range missiles, in an “egregious provocation” designed to stop soldiers surrendering.
It said that among the dead were Ukrainian forces that had laid down their arms after repelling Moscow’s assault on the sprawling Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.
The claims came as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a port in southern Ukraine to oversee a ship being loaded with grain for export under a UN-backed plan aimed at ending a food crisis.
Ukraine’s presidency said exports could start in the “coming days” under the plan aimed at getting millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain stranded by Russia’s naval blockade to world markets.
‘Petrifying war crime’
Following the strike on the prison, Russian state-television showed what appeared to be destroyed barracks and tangled metal beds but no casualties could be seen.
Ukraine’s military denied carrying out the attack saying its forces “did not launch missile and artillery strikes in the area of Olenivka settlement.”
Russia has committed another petrifying war crime by shelling a correctional facility in the occupied Olenivka where it held Ukrainian POWs. I call on all partners to strongly condemn this brutal violation of international humanitarian law and recognize Russia a terrorist state.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) July 29, 2022
It instead blamed Russia’s invading forces for “a targeted artillery shelling” on the detention facility, saying it was being used to “accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, as well as to hide the torture of prisoners and executions”.
“Russia has committed another petrifying war crime by shelling a correctional facility in occupied” Olenivka where it held Ukrainian POWs, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Ukraine’s forces in May ended a weeks-long siege of Azovstal, with around 2,500 combatants surrendering after calling a halt to their first resistance.
Moscow’s state media has reported that some officers – including those from the controversial Azov regiment – have been taken into Russia.
Kyiv says it has captured thousands of Russian troops during the invasion and has begun putting some on trial for alleged war crimes.
A Ukrainian court on Friday reduced the life sentence handed to a Russian soldier in May for premeditated murder in the country’s first war crimes trial, instead jailing the serviceman for 15 years.
Mykolaiv strikes
Russian strikes elsewhere in Ukraine killed five people and wounded seven more on Friday on the heavily bombed city of Mykolaiv near the country’s southern frontline, the regional governor said.
“They shot at another area near a public transport stop,” governor Vitaliy Kim said in a statement on social media.
Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, has seen roughly half of its estimated pre-war population of nearly 500,000 people leave and the city has been shelled daily for weeks.
It is the largest Ukrainian-controlled urban hub near the frontlines in the Kherson region, where Kyiv’s army has launched a counter-offensive to regain control of the economically and strategically important coastal territory.
The Ukrainian presidency said Friday that Russian strikes on the city a day earlier had struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and injured three people.
In the eastern Donetsk region, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko also said Friday that Moscow’s forces had killed eight people and wounded 19 more in attacks over the previous day.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a port in southern Ukraine to oversee grain being loaded for export onto a Turkish ship, the presidency said, following a deal with Russia brokered by the UN and Turkey.
“The first vessel, the first ship is being loaded since the beginning of the war. This is a Turkish vessel,” Zelenskyy said, according to a statement from the presidency.
Video footage from the Chornomorsk port released by the presidency showed him in front of a ship called Polarnet.
The statement said exports could start in “the coming days” under the plan aimed at getting millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain stranded by Russia’s naval blockade to world markets.
“Our side is fully prepared. We sent all the signals to our partners – the UN and Turkey, and our military guarantees the security situation.
“The minister of infrastructure is in direct contact with the Turkish side and the UN. We are waiting for a signal from them that we can start,” Zelenskyy was quoted as saying.
The presidency said the export of grain will begin with several ships that were already loaded when Russia invaded in February but unable to set sail due to the start of the war.
The deal to lift Russia’s blockade – the first significant accord involving the two warring sides since the assault began – is aimed at helping mitigate a global food crisis that has seen prices soar in some of the world’s poorest nations.
Ukraine – one of the world’s top grain exporters before the war – says it aims to export some 20 million tonnes of produce, worth some $10 billion, under the plan.
“It is important for us that Ukraine remains the guarantor of global food security,” Zelenskyy, who was escorted by ambassador from the G7 nations, said in the statement.
War crimes sentence reduced
A Ukrainian court reduced to 15 years a life sentence handed to a Russian soldier in May for premeditated murder in the country’s first war crimes trial.
“According to the result of the appellate review, the appeal filed by the defence was partially satisfied,” a statement on the Kyiv court of appeals’ website said, adding that Russian soldier “Vadim Shishimarin was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.”
Shishimarin, who was 21 at the time of the ruling in May, was found guilty of war crimes for killing an unarmed civilian and handed a life sentence, in the first verdict of its kind of Russia’s invasion.
The sergeant from Siberia had admitted to killing a 62-year-old civilian, Oleksandr Shelipov, as he was riding his bike in the village of Chupakhivka in northeast Ukraine.
Shishimarin claimed he shot Shelipov under pressure from another soldier as they tried to retreat and escape back into Russia in a stolen car on 28 February.
His lawyer Viktor Ovsyannikov had vowed to appeal the verdict, arguing that “societal pressure” weighed on the decision.
Additional reporting from AFP
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