Main Directorate of Intelligence: The terrorist act in Olenivka was a special operation of the Russian Federation against the supply of weapons to Ukraine

The Russian terrorist attack on Ukrainian prisoners of war in Olenivka was a special operation of the Russian army to discredit the supply of western weapons to Ukraine.

Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, a member of the coordinating staff for the treatment of prisoners of war, stated this.

"From the beginning of this terrible tragedy and terrible farce that we saw on the part of the Russians, it was a falsification. From the first reports of the use and deliberate firing of high-precision HIMARS weapons, it was a special operation against the supply of Western high-precision weapons to Ukraine. It was a special operation aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society and demoralizing Ukrainian prisoners of war. It was a falsification from the very beginning, but the world quickly exposes such things," he emphasized.

• On the night of July 29, explosions rang out in the colony in the occupied city of Olenivka, Donetsk oblast, where the Russians held Ukrainian prisoners of war from "Azovstal". The Russians said that it was the ZSU that was hit with HIMARS. However, the General Staff of Ukraine stated that the pre-trial detention center was fired upon by the Russians themselves in order to accuse Ukraine of "war crimes" and to cover up the torture of prisoners and executions. More than 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed by shelling, and 130 were injured. Previously, the Russians struck with a thermobaric weapon.
• The explosions took place on the territory of the industrial zone, in a newly built building that was supposed to be specially equipped to hold prisoners who had been taken out of Azovstal. The building was completed on July 27, after which some of the captured Ukrainian defenders were transferred to it. Ukrainian military intelligence said that the explosion was carried out by the mercenaries of PMC Wagner on the instructions of the owner of PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, "Putinʼs cook". They did not coordinate the organization and actual terrorist attack with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
• On July 30, the Ministry of Defense of Russia published a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war who allegedly died as a result of a terrorist attack. There are 48 dead on the list, and 73 names on the list of wounded. Ukraine asks people not to trust these lists because they are unofficial.