Questions about what exactly happened in the Yelenovka colony (located on the territory of the Donetsk region not controlled by Kyiv), where on July 29, 2022, more than 50 captured Ukrainian servicemen died as a result of an explosion, do not become less . Moscow has accused Kyiv of making the death of the prisoners a blow to Ukraine by the United States by the multiple launch systems of HIMARS rockets. The APU categorically denies these allegations.

Independent experts cannot go to the scene, although the Russian Defense Ministry has said it will allow experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the UN to enter in the interest of conducting an objective investigation into what happened. However, the ICRC reported that, as of Sunday evening, 31 July, they still had no access to Yelenovka. About what can be deduced from the information available today, there was a conversation in the premiere edition of the DW News Show with Alexander Plushev and Tatyana Felgenhauer. Ukrainian military expert Oleg Zhdanov answered questions from DW columnists.

DW: The Russian side has published several videos, including those of the dead and wounded in Yelenovka, photos from the scene of the tragedy. In addition, satellite images of the colony taken by the commercial company Maxar Technologies have already been uploaded to the web. Please tell me what conclusions can be drawn from this visual information?

Oleg Zhdanov: I have a lot of doubts about the peeled version. As an artillery officer, I will say: there can be no black smoke after the explosions. During shooting – yes, but the explosions themselves are usually accompanied by the release of white smoke. This is the first.

Second. During the explosion, the dispersion of fragments is observed. And this cloud should have looked like a high explosive explosion. Here, it looks more like internal explosions, in a building, than external ones, penetrating through the roof.

Well, and most importantly, the photos and videos of the interior show that all the beds are in place. And the bodies lie where the beds are. With a high-explosive blast, beds and bodies must have scattered all over the building. It was to knock down windows, tear off the roof, and if there were several explosions, maybe there would be the destruction of the building itself, cracks in the walls. And the entire sooty wall shown to us in the video must be dotted with hundreds of fragments that are formed as a result of a high explosive explosion. But the plaster on the wall is absolutely intact.

– The adviser to the President of Ukraine, Mikhail Podolyak, wrote on his Twitter that the Russian side could have detonated thermobaric charges inside the building. What is its effect, and do we see traces of that impact now, based on the information we already know?

– I guess so. The thermobaric munition gives a volumetric explosion and burns the oxygen in the process. Therefore, the main type of injury that a person receives is a rupture of internal organs caused by exposure to a shock wave. In addition, there is a raging fire at the site of the explosion and there is no oxygen to breathe. This effect is created by thermobaric ammunition, commonly called “vacuum”.

– Suppose experts from the Red Cross and the UN sooner or later arrive at the scene of the tragedy. After so long, when the bodies were taken away, some rocket fragments were brought in, is it possible to draw reliable conclusions on the spot, to understand what happened?

– I think so. If the specialists are experienced, especially if they allow forensic experts, they, for example, can remove carbon deposits from the walls and determine the type of explosive that was used there. This is most important as it will help determine what kind of explosion it was and what kind of ammo was used. After all, filling different ammo is different and producing TNT is different.

The only thing I can think of is that the Red Cross can conduct such an investigation. Because Ukraine has a positive experience when ICRC experts investigated the tragedy near Ilovaisk and proved that our wounded were disposed of after being deprived of the opportunity to defend themselves on the battlefield. I refer to the shooting of our troops in the so-called “green corridor” in 2014.

But I highly doubt the UN experts. Especially because of the UN Secretary General’s own position and his friendship with Putin.