Olenivka and the law of war, 29 July 2022

What did 29 July 2022 reveal about how the war treated those who were no longer fighting, whether prisoners or civilians? Three developments that day pointed in the same direction: the deaths at Olenivka, a video said to show abuse of a Ukrainian captive, and a Kyiv court's ruling on a Russian soldier convicted of killing a civilian.

Olenivka

The most serious event was the explosion at a prison in Olenivka, in the Russian-controlled Donetsk Oblast. Russia and the Donetsk People's Republic said that 53 people were killed and 75 injured when shelling hit a facility holding Ukrainian prisoners of war. Russia and Ukraine each accused the other of carrying out the strike.

Later accounts added detail that was not part of the public picture on 29 July. The prison was in Molodizhne near Olenivka, and the prisoners were mainly soldiers of the Azov regiment who had defended the Azovstal complex, the last Ukrainian stronghold in the siege of Mariupol. Later accounts also described the strike as a Russian false-flag operation, and gave a range of 53 to 62 dead and 75 to 130 wounded. On the day itself, the competing accusations and the Russian-side casualty figures were what stood.

The central point is that prisoners are wholly in the custody of the side that holds them. Whoever fired, the dead were people held in a Russian-controlled location.

A video and an appeal

The same day, a video appeared on social media that appeared to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner of war in Sievierodonetsk. It had not been independently verified. The Ukrainian government voiced outrage and vowed retaliation against the perpetrators.

In Kyiv, a court reduced the sentence of Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier tried for war crimes, from life in prison to 15 years of detention. His defence attorney said it was highly likely that he would be returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange. Later accounts note that Shishimarin had pleaded guilty on 18 May 2022 to fatally shooting an unarmed civilian, Oleksandr Shelipov, and was sentenced to life on 23 May. A law professor, Chris Jenks, suggested that the legal reasoning, conviction and sentencing appeared to be flawed.

Set beside Olenivka and the video, the appeal shows a Ukrainian court handling a captured soldier through a judicial process, with a reduced sentence and the prospect of an exchange, on the same day that Ukraine was accusing Russia of killing and abusing its captives.

Strikes on civilians

Civilians were also hit in the days around that date. On 29 July, a Russian strike killed five civilians and injured seven at a bus stop in Mykolaiv, according to regional governor Vitaliy Kim. The day before, missiles struck Kropyvnytskyi, damaging facilities of the Kropyvnytskyi Flight Academy and Air Urga, killing five people and injuring 25. Russian forces shelled Bakhmut with BM-27 Uragan rocket launchers, killing three civilians and injuring three, and destroying or damaging six apartment blocks and six detached houses.

On 28 July, Russia also launched cruise missile strikes from the Black Sea on Kyiv Oblast for the first time in weeks, hitting Bucha, Lyutizh and Vyshhorod. Kyiv governor Oleksiy Kuleba said at least fifteen people were injured, five of them civilians. Russian forces in Belarus launched 25 ballistic missiles into northern Ukraine the same day.

The military and economic backdrop

The front line was moving too. On 27 July, Russia captured the Vuhlehirska Power Station near Svitlodarsk, Donetsk Oblast, described as Ukraine's second largest power plant. Russia also said it had destroyed more than 100 M142 HIMARS missiles in an airstrike on Dnipro. On 28 July, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said an operation to recapture Kherson Oblast had started.

Beyond the battlefield, the war was reaching Europe's energy supply. On 28 July, authorities in Hanover, Germany, turned off heating and switched to cold showers in all public buildings, and shut off public fountains, after Gazprom reduced gas supplies to Germany through Nord Stream.

What the day showed

The pattern of 29 July was one of contested responsibility and limited verification. The Olenivka deaths were blamed by each side on the other; the castration video remained unverified; and the Shishimarin ruling showed a legal process running in Kyiv even as the strikes continued elsewhere. For international readers, the day illustrated how much of the war's legal and moral argument turned on who could establish what happened to people in custody and to civilians under fire.