Ukraine war: Kyiv demands Red Cross visit notorious prison

A security guard stands outside a building at Olenivka prison camp after it was damaged by an explosion in July

Ukrainian officials have urged the Red Cross to conduct a mission to a notorious prison camp in the Russia-occupied east of the country.

The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, demanded that the Red Cross (ICRC) visit the Olenivka prison in Donetsk within three days.

"We just can't waste more time. Human lives are at stake," he tweeted.

Last month, the Red Cross tried to secure access to the camp, but said it was denied by Russian authorities.

In a statement on Friday, the ICRC said: "We want to stress that our teams are ready on the ground - and have been ready for months - to visit the Olenivka penal facility and any other location where POWs are held.

"However, beyond being granted access by high levels of authority, this requires practical arrangements to materialize on the ground. We cannot access by force a place of detention or internment where we have not been admitted."

The Olenivka prison has been under the control of Russian-backed authorities in Donetsk since 2014, and conditions are said to be extremely poor.

In July, dozens of Ukrainian prisoners were killed in explosions at the camp, which both sides blamed on each other. Kyiv said the prison was targeted by Russia to destroy evidence of torture and killing, while Moscow blamed Ukrainian rockets. Without an independent investigation, however, the truth remains unknown.

Those detained at the site include members of the Azov battalion, who were the last defenders of the city of Mariupol and whom Russia has sought to depict as neo-Nazis and war criminals.

This is not the first time Ukraine has applied pressure to international organisations to investigate what is going on at the prison.

Mr Yermak said he had raised the issue again during a video conference with officials from the ICRC and other international organisations.

He has demanded the trip be made by Monday.

"Ukraine... will contribute to this mission in every possible way," he said on Telegram, adding he did not understand why a mission to inspect Olenivka had not yet been arranged.

President Volodymyr Zelensky echoed the calls, and accused the Red Cross of inaction, saying it had "obligations, primarily of a moral nature".

In his nightly address on Thursday, Mr Zelensky said he believed that the Red Cross was "not a club with privileges where one receives a salary and enjoys life".

He said a mission to the prison camp could be organised similar to that of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which visited the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in August.

"But it requires leadership," Mr Zelensky said in a thinly veiled criticism of the Red Cross. "The Red Cross can make it happen. But you have to try to make it happen."

Frustration likely to continue

The circumstances surrounding the deaths of at least 53 Ukrainian prisoners at Olenivka remain unexplained.

Russia quickly blamed Ukraine, saying it used US-supplied Himars rockets to hit the prison. Ukraine said Russia was to blame and called it a war crime.

We investigated the incident at length at the time and spoke to half a dozen weapons and forensics experts.

All agreed that there was absolutely no evidence that the warehouse where prisoners were being held had been struck from the outside, by a missile or anything else.

Video evidence, they all said, pointed to the use of some kind of incendiary device, planted inside the building.

In other words, they were all convinced that Russia had deliberately killed the prisoners.

The Red Cross had been asking for access to Olenivka from May, when large numbers of Azov Regiment prisoners were taken there by the Russians following the end of the siege of Mariupol.

But Russia had consistently refused to grant permission. ICRC appeals following the explosion also went unanswered.

The Ukrainian government has expressed frustration over the ICRC's role for months and would like to see more public pressure being exerted on Russia to allow access to Olenivka.

But the Red Cross has always operated in a confidential manner with parties holding prisoners. It argues that it cannot really function in any other way.

The government in Kyiv is likely to remain frustrated.

Also in his Thursday address President Zelensky said Ukraine would celebrate its Defenders Day on Friday, which was made a national holiday in 2014 after Russia's invasion of Crimea.

"Tomorrow we will definitely celebrate… one of our most important days. The holiday of all our warriors - from ancient times to the present, from the Cossacks to the rebels, from all of them to the soldiers of the modern army," he said.

Additional reporting by Tiffany Wertheimer.