An administration official told CNN they expect Russia will falsify evidence, blame Ukrainian forces, and even have “reason to believe that Russia would go so far as to make it appear that Ukrainian HIMARS were to blame before journalists arrive.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday the attack on the prison in separatist-held eastern Ukraine, which resulted in the deaths of at least 50 prisoners, was “a deliberate war crime by the Russians.” Russia, meanwhile, blamed Ukraine for the attack.
Video aired on Russian networks and shared on social media channels in Donetsk show extensive destruction to a building and several bodies. CNN was able to geolocate footage of the strike to an industrial area about two miles outside the frontline town of Olenivka.
The Ukrainian military said the explosion took place on the territory of the industrial zone, in a newly-constructed building specially equipped to hold prisoners taken out of Azovstal.
The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into the strike. In a statement, it said pretrial preliminary data shows “the occupying state struck the territory of penal colony No. 120 in the temporarily occupied Olenivka village of Volnovakha district of Donetsk region.”
The area has become the centerpiece of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military ambition in Ukraine after his troops failed to take over Kyiv earlier this year.
The Russian military has kept up a persistent barrage of artillery and missile strikes across the region for several weeks. The Kremlin says the goal of what it calls its “special military operation” is to take control of both Luhansk and Donetsk.
CNN’s Tim Lister, Julia Kesaieva, Josh Pennington and Richard Roth contributed to this report.
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