The international community has condemned Russia’s apparent strike on a POW camp amidst ongoing claims by the International Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations that they have not been given access to the site of the attack.
After an initial day of wariness, Western governments have begun condemning the strike, indicating that some degree of intelligence confirms Russia’s involvement. Though Russia attempted to portray the strike as a HIMARS strike using debris allegedly found at the site, the damage to the facility seems to match Russian thermobaric weapons, per international sources.
Ukrainians have reviled the attack, with a video published by the Azov regiment declaring their intention to avenge their tortured and murdered soldiers. The status of Azov POWs has largely fed the visceral Ukrainian reaction as ‘heroes,’ a sharp departure from their neo-Nazi sympathetic origins. Though Azov began as a militia with far-right tendencies, it has changed significantly in the eight years of the war in the Donbas and cleared any doubts as to its redemption after enduring the brutal siege of Mariupol. Those who fought in the surrounded city, secured humanitarian corridors, and conducted daring resupplies through several kilometers of occupied territory, quickly became champions to both Ukrainians and observers abroad.
World Affairs International 