Shafaq News / The Russian military and pro-Moscow separatists claimed Friday that Ukrainian forces shelled a prison in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

“Ukrainian security forces fired HIMARS rockets at a pre-trial detention center near Olenivka tonight,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agencies.

It said Ukrainian prisoners of war — including members of the Azov Regiment who surrendered in May after defending the port city of Mariupol from within the besieged Azovstal steel plant — were held at the Olenivka prison.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said 40 Ukrainian POWs were killed and 84 others wounded.

Authorities in the separatist Donetsk People's Republic placed the death toll at 53.

Ukrainian officials have not yet commented on Russia’s claims.

The alleged attack using U.S.-supplied long-range missile systems comes amid Ukraine’s active counteroffensive to retake two occupied southern regions.

Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, claimed without evidence that the attack was a deliberate attempt to keep the Ukrainian soldiers from “testifying” for Donetsk’s “war crimes trial” that Kyiv decries as a sham.

Ukrainian soldiers captured during five months of fighting are being held in Russian-controlled territories, with independent media reporting that some of them had been transferred to Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison.

(The Moscow Times)