Ukraine, as part of an exchange with the Russian Federation, received 62 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, including captured soldiers who died as a result of the July strike on the Yelenovka colony. This was reported on the website of the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine.
Oleg Kotenko, Commissioner for Missing Persons, said that those who “were in hell itself and defended Ukraine” were returned to the country.
“Today Ukraine returned the bodies of heroes. The negotiations were extremely difficult, but thanks to the painstaking work of the entire Kotenko team, we managed to return our soldiers, in particular, the fighters from the long-suffering Yelenovka, ”the message says.
Russia did not report the results of the exchange or how many bodies were returned to the country.
The explosion in the colony in Yelenovka occurred on July 29. 53 people died, 130 were injured. The so-called DPR authorities blamed him on the Ukrainian side. A few hours after the explosion, the pro-Kremlin RIA Novosti published a video that allegedly showed fragments of a HIMARS projectile used by Ukraine at the site of the explosion. The authors of the CNN investigation , who studied videos, photos, satellite images, as well as the work of forensic scientists and weapons experts, reported that the likelihood of a HIMARS missile hitting the colony was virtually impossible. The Russian version that Ukraine struck was implausible, investigators said.
The representative of the press service of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR MOU) Andriy Yusov stated that Russia staged a terrorist attack in a prison for Ukrainian prisoners of war in order to prevent the supply of Western precision weapons. The Insider found out that propagandists reported on the preparation of a "provocation" back in June, and the industrial zone that was hit was empty almost until the shelling. However, a few days before that, hangars were set up there and the Azov fighters were placed in them, which, as it turned out, no one was going to exchange. This was told to The Insider by Vitaly Sitnikov, a 34-year-old volunteer from Mariupol, who himself spent more than three months in a prison in Yelenovka.