The American TV channel CNN conducted its own investigation of the terrorist attack in the occupied Olenivka, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were held. The material was released on the morning of August 11 under the title "Russia claims that Ukraine used American weapons to kill prisoners of war. The evidence tells a different story."
CNNʼs investigation is based on analysis of video and photos from the scene, satellite images before and after the attack, and the work of forensics and weapons experts. The conclusion is that the Russian version of events is most likely a fabrication. The probability that the HIMARS missile caused damage to the warehouse where the prisoners were kept is practically excluded. Two Ukrainian officials told CNN that the terrorist attack in Olenivka happened just as they were expecting a prisoner exchange with Russia.
Experts interviewed by CNN do not consider the HIMARS strike on Olenivka, but cannot say exactly what killed and injured so many prisoners. Lack of access precludes definitive conclusions. However, experts say most signs point to an intense fire, and there was no sound of an approaching rocket, according to several witnesses. The morning after the explosion, Andriy Lazarev, who works for the Russian Defense Ministryʼs “Zvezda” TV channel, pointed to neatly arranged fragments, one of which contained the serial number of a HIMARS missile in surprisingly good condition — despite the intense fire that charred the bodies.
Previous strikes using HIMARS missiles have left visible craters on satellite images, as well as extensive damage. Much less destruction is visible on satellite images of the terrorist attack in Olenivka on July 29. Several weapons experts told CNN that the images and video from Olenivka were inconsistent with a HIMARS attack.
The weapons expert, Chris Cobb-Smith, who reviewed images and video of the aftermath, stated that a building with such thin walls and a metal roof would not have survived a HIMARS strike.
"On these videos, there is no tear anywhere, the beds did not move, the pillars are not damaged, but massive fire damage is visible. If it had been a guided missile salvo, you would have seen gouges, broken ceilings and walls, blown bodies,” Cobb-Smith explained.
US officials also rejected the version of the use of HIMARS. One official told CNN, "It was definitely not HIMARS."
Another Western official told CNN: “It is clear to our explosives experts that this was not an external explosion. It is much more likely that it will be inflammatory from within the location as well."
Many analysts also told CNN that it made no sense for Ukraine to use the HIMARS missile if it wanted to hit the building. The location is approximately 15 km from the front line; HIMARS are expensive weapons used for long-range targeting.
A NATO official told CNN that “[HIMARS] is not designed for that [close-in homing]. Like the howitzer, it is designed for long-range combat, like artillery. There is no point in using [HIMARS] in this way. Ukrainians have other weapons for such short distances."
Experts told CNN that the data indicated a sudden and severe fire inside the building. The General Prosecutorʼs Office of Ukraine assumed that the Russians hit the colony with a thermobaric weapon — it is, in fact, a vacuum bomb that sucks all the oxygen out of the air and very quickly emits very high temperatures. This weapon kills a person under high pressure, causing internal bleeding and rupture of internal organs.
Cobb-Smith says that while a thermobaric weapon could theoretically be used, it could be "something much simpler."
Professor Benjamin Ondrushka, a German pathologist who worked on the investigation of war crimes in Buch, says that only a full autopsy could reveal the cause of death, but if you analyze the images, we are talking about a fire at a temperature of at least 300 °C, and maybe twice that.
"As a medical examiner, it appears that something exploded near the people who were the most burned, causing a detonation that caused the fire," he noted.
- 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 Armed Forces of Ukraine 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 torture of prisoners and executions. More than 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed and 130 were injured in the shelling. 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" at the behest 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 Russian Ministry of Defense published a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war who allegedly died as a result of a terrorist attack. There are 48 dead in the list, and 73 names in the list of wounded. Ukraine asks people not to trust these lists, because they are unofficial.