Families of Olenivka prisoners say they found new evidence in barracks explosion case
The Olenivka Community, a group representing families of Ukrainian prisoners of war held in the Olenivka prison colony, has uncovered new evidence in the case of the deadly explosion in the facility, as stated by Anna Lobova, the wife of a man seriously injured during the terrorist attack in Olenivka, at a presentation at the Media Center Ukraine.
“We learned that the lists for ‘Barracks 200’ were compiled and changed,” she said. “We found out that, according to released prisoners, these lists were brought to the head of the colony by a former Ukrainian prisoner of war. We knew this information a year ago, but our NGO had no personal confirmation, no witness who would go to law enforcement. So we stayed silent and waited for the investigation to finally tell us something new. The testimony I’m talking about is documented, but not by us and not by investigators.”
Anna said the group had noticed a social media comment on the Olenivka Community’s page claiming that the list for transferring Azov fighters to “Barracks 200,” where the deadly blast occurred, had been compiled by a certain “traitor.”
Representatives of the group contacted the commenter for more information and were reportedly able to confirm that he was indeed a former prisoner from Olenivka.
“We are handing this data over to the SBU and asking why, after four years, we learned this information ourselves,” she added. “We will not comment further — let the Security Service of Ukraine work with it. The only thing we ask is this: if it really turns out to be true, we are interested in the list. If there is even some truth in these words, then it follows that this person may be able to help at least reconstruct the full list of those transferred to Barracks 200. That is the minimum information we would like to know,”
Families of the prisoners said they remain in an “information vacuum” about the course of the investigation and have had to try on their own to reconstruct the list of people transferred to the destroyed barracks.
“Russia reported 71 seriously wounded and 48 dead, and the rest out of all 193 had to be searched for independently,” Anna said. “We still have not found around 12 or 13 people; their names remain unknown. … We, as families of prisoners of war, are victims. Despite that, for four years we have been forced to search on our own for new information about what happened overnight into July 29, 2022. We ourselves are establishing the circumstances of the tragedy, finding witnesses on our own… That is why we want to ask several open questions.”
What is ‘Barracks 200’?
Overnight into July 29, 2022, an explosion tore through a barracks in Volnovakha Correctional Colony No. 120 in occupied Olenivka, where captured Ukrainian defenders — Azov fighters who had surrendered from Azovstal under what Ukraine described as “honorable captivity” terms — were being held.
Shortly before the explosion, Russian forces had decided to transfer about 200 Azov fighters to a barracks in an industrial zone isolated from the rest of the prison colony.
According to released prisoners, 193 servicemen were inside the barracks. During the pre-trial investigation, authorities were able to identify 49 of those killed and more than 140 wounded. Three bodies remain unidentified — Russia returned them in poor condition after failing to store them properly.
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