KYIV, Ukraine, July 25, (AP): The former prisoners of war still puzzle over the strange events leading up to the night now seared into their memories, when an explosion ripped through the Russian-controlled Olenivka prison barracks and killed so many comrades two years ago.
Among the survivors: Kyrylo Masalitin, whose months in captivity and long beard age him beyond his 30 years. Arsen Dmytryk, the informal commander of the group of POWs that was shifted without explanation to a room newly stocked with bare bunks. And Mykyta Shastun, who recalled guards laughing as the building burned, acting not at all like men under enemy attack.
"Before my eyes, there were guys who were dying, who were being revived, but it was all in vain,” said Masalitin, who is back on the frontline and treated as a father-figure by the men he commands.
The Associated Press interviewed over a dozen people with direct knowledge of details of the attack, including survivors, investigators and families of the dead and missing. All described evidence they believe points directly to Russia as the culprit. The AP also obtained an internal United Nations analysis that found the same.
Despite the conclusion of the internal analysis that found Russia planned and executed the attack, the UN stopped short of accusing Russia in public statements.
Of 193 Ukrainians in the barracks, less than two dozen made it back home. More than 50 died the night of July 28, 2022. Around 120 are missing and believed detained in somewhere in Russia. Russia accused Ukraine of striking its own men with US-supplied missiles.
There are no active international investigations into the attack and a Ukrainian inquiry is one of tens of thousands of war crimes for investigators there, raising wider questions about whether those who committed crimes in occupied areas can ever face justice.
The UN has rejected Russia’s claims that Ukrainian government HIMARS targeted the men, as do the victims who returned in prisoner exchanges, like Masalitin. When the former POWs have time to reflect - rare since many have returned to the fight - they say too many things don’t add up.