Russia’s terrifying crime in Olenivka is extremely cynical provocation, – Zelensky’s office adviser

Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to Zelensky’s office, commented on this morning shelling of a penal colony in Olenivka, Donetsk region, where Ukrainian prisoners were held. Ukrainian prisoners of war captured during the battle for Mariupol were being held after they surrendered from the Azovstal steel plant:

Olenivka is another extremely cynical provocation by the Russian occupying forces since the beginning of the war.

1. Undoubtedly, this was a carefully planned attack on the colony, which was carried out by Russian troops. There are no operational military targets for the Ukrainian army in Olenivka. Moreover, our Armed Forces have all the tools for accurate identification of objects to be destroyed: ammunition depots, operational-tactical staffs, fuel bases.
   
2. The scale and speed of the information campaign on the part of Russian propagandists indicate that it was precisely a planned and organized action. We know that some of the captured defenders were transferred to the barrack where the shooting took place a few days before the crime. A classic, cynical, and very elaborate false flag operation.
   
3. The purpose of the “deer crime” is to hide the growing evidence of the scale of Russian war crimes and torture, to disrupt exchange agreements, to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine and (in this case) specific models of foreign jet weapons that terrorize the Russian occupiers.
   
4. The accuracy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been proven by numerous burning Russian warehouses, logistics points, command centers and bridges of the Kherson Region. Everything that Ukraine destroys is automatically confirmed by various recording tools.
   
5. Russian hysterical statements in anticipation that the blow was inflicted on captured Ukrainian defenders — to create a resonance in Ukraine and to set the population of various countries against our Armed Forces. The motive is clear. The real identities of the dead will be established by Ukrainian intelligence and special services.
   
6. In any case, this is a deliberate, cynical, calculated mass murder by the Russians of captured Ukrainian citizens, which will be investigated by the Office of the Prosecutor General and international investigative teams. It is evident that as tactical defeats loom, Russia will resort to new cannibalistic provocations in order to promote them to global markets. We also demand an immediate and tough reaction from the UN and other international organizations — Russia must be excluded from any international institutions.