Russia ‘plants evidence to blame West for prison camp rocket blast’

RUSSIA is working to fake evidence to claim Western rockets destroyed a jail housing Ukrainian prisoners of war, Washington warned yesterday.

US intelligence officials say Russia wants it to appear that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the July 29 attack on Olenivka prison that left 53 dead.

Russia has said Ukraine’s military used US rocket launchers to strike the prison in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The Ukrainian defence ministry claimed to have evidence the DPR colluded with the Russian FSB and Moscow’s mercenary group, Wagner, to mine the barrack before ‘using a flammable substance, which led to the rapid spread of fire in the room’.

A US official said Russia might even plant ammunition from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems as evidence that the weapons provided by the US were used, as it anticipates independent investigators and journalists eventually getting access to the Olenivka site.