Le istituzioni internazionali non sono in grado di aiutare a punire i responsabili del crimine russo contro i prigionieri di Azov a Olenivka

So we paid them by taxes all our life, and now they refuse to fulfill their part of the deal cause “unable” and “russkies have big bombs”.
We ukrainians got blatantly scammed.

*Interview with Oleksandra Mazur, a representative of the “Olenivka Community” association. Interviewer: Kateryna Pryshchepa.*

On July 29th, it will be three years since the planned explosion that killed 53 and wounded about 130 more Mariupol defenders from the Azov Regiment. After their ordered surrender in May 2022, they were held by the Russians in a penal colony in the village of Olenivka in Donetsk Oblast. From the moment when the information about the crime became public, the families of the prisoners who were held in the barracks where the explosion took place have been fighting for the punishment of the perpetrators and the return of the remaining Azov prisoners from captivity. We talked about the organization’s activities with Oleksandra Mazur, a representative of the “Olenivka Community” association. This group brings together the relatives of prisoners of war from the Azov Regiment who became the victims of Russian war crimes in Olenivka.

**KATERYNA PRYSHCHEPA: On the eve of the third anniversary of the execution of Ukrainian prisoners in the Olenivka colony, what is the situation concerning the investigation of the crime and the actions to bring those responsible to justice?**

OLEKSANDRA MAZUR: Now we are still waiting for the return home of those who were in that barracks in Olenivka at the time of the execution and survived. This is a priority…

**Do you have any estimates of the number of such prisoners?**

Unfortunately, all the figures are only estimations. There were about 200 people in the barracks, and most of them are still in captivity. Some have returned, fortunately, but not all of them. Their return is a priority.

**Then I would like to ask a basic question. Has the entire list of those killed in those barracks been established?**

There is a list of the dead whose identities have been confirmed by DNA analysis in Ukraine and who have been buried. We know them for sure. These are the people whose bodies were transferred to Ukraine. But we have doubts whether this list is exhaustive, because no organizations or experts not affiliated with the Russian authorities were allowed to visit the crime scene.

Once the list of the killed is established and the prisoners are returned, it is important to conduct an independent investigation. As of now, unfortunately, there is no international mechanism to hold Russia accountable. There is the International Criminal Court, and from mid-2023 to December 2024, that is till the end of last year, we worked to collect all possible information about this crime. We did this in cooperation with several other organizations – the Media Initiative for Human Rights, the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, the Regional Centre for Human Rights, Yahad in Unum (the principle task of this organization is collecting testimonies of Nazi crimes), and OSINT for Ukraine. We collected evidence that could be gathered without being at the crime scene – eyewitness testimonies, analysis of available images of the crime scene, and so on.

Based on the materials we collected, in December last year we prepared and filed a case with the International Criminal Court. But the thing is that the International Criminal Court does not have to respond to us. That is, there are no deadlines for them to respond within a certain period of time. They may not answer us at all. And it turns out that for the moment we have no other mechanisms for punishing Russia, no institution where we could hand over our materials for investigation.