A car bomb has killed the former head of a Russian-controlled prison where dozens of Ukrainian soldiers were killed in an explosion that Moscow and Kyiv blame on each other, pro-Kremlin media reported Monday, citing anonymous sources.
Sergei Yevsyukov was killed and his wife was injured in the blast in central Donetsk, in Russian-occupied Ukraine, according to the Mash Telegram channel, which is believed to have links to Russia’s security services.
This summer, Ukrainian authorities charged Yevsyukov with the cruel treatment of prisoners of war and premeditated murder over the July 2022 explosion at the Olenivka prison where he was the warden.
At least 50 Ukrainian prisoners were killed and more than 130 wounded in the attack, which both Russia and Ukraine blamed on each other.
A UN investigation based on interviews with witnesses and survivors last year dismissed Russia’s claims that a Ukrainian HIMARS missile had struck the Olenivka prison. Russia had refused to grant the UN human rights agency’s mission access to Olenivka.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which announced a criminal investigation into the explosion, shared a video showing the blown-up car on the sidewalk with a blurred image of a victim on the driver’s side.
The law enforcement body said two “local residents” were injured in the incident but it did not identify them by name or title.
No one has claimed responsibility for the apparent attack.
Russian prisoner-rights activist Eva Merkacheva said the federal penitentiary service confirmed that Yevsyukov headed the prison until 2022 after initially denying that he worked there.
Ukraine’s SBU security service, which announced criminal charges over the Olenivka explosion, said Russian-backed authorities replaced Yevsyukov and his deputy in November 2022.
Pro-Russian Ukrainian official Vladimir Rogov denounced the car bomb.
Mash later claimed that Ukraine had offered a $21,000 reward for Yevsyukov’s death.
Russian military personnel and Kremlin-backed officials have been targeted regularly in assassination plots since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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