By Galina Korol | 2025-10-31

Oleksandr Verengotov remembers the laughter. As Ukrainian prisoners screamed for help inside a burning barracks, Russian guards stood behind the fence, smoking and watching.

"Guys writhed in pain, screamed and begged for help, but the prison officers stood behind a fence. They smoked and laughed. It was fun for them," Verengotov told Kontur, describing the night the Olenivka prison where Russian occupiers illegally hold captured Ukrainians erupted in flames.

He survived a glimpse of hell. "Later people told me, 'You were probably born in a spacesuit,'" Verengotov said.

Now, Ukrainian human rights activists are documenting accounts like Verengotov's to build a record of the Olenivka attack -- and to hold Russia accountable for what they describe as one of its most brutal war crimes.

Life before and after

Verengotov was born in Berdyansk, a city in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. He chose his identity early.

"Well, I'm Ukrainian and I live in Ukraine, so I'll go to the Ukrainian one," he told his mother in first grade when asked which class he wanted to join.

When war erupted in Donbas, he left his factory job and volunteered for the army. In 2018, he joined the Azov Regiment, serving three years before returning to civilian life.

At the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Verengotov went back to Mariupol to rejoin his comrades. His wife, he says, supported his decision completely.

This road led Verengotov to Azovstal steel plant and from there to Olenivka. He was among Mariupol's defenders who surrendered in May 2022 by order of the high command.

"And even now, knowing that I would experience such a thing, that I would almost die, I would still go," he said, adding, "I love my country. I love everything that is happening with us."

In Olenivka, all Azov prisoners, including Verengotov, were initially held separately.

On July 27, prison officers arrived with a list of 200 names, all belonging to Azov fighters.

Verengotov said the list seemed "random" and had no logical explanation.

The guards told the prisoners to pack their belongings, claiming they were being moved to better conditions. In fact, "There were no conditions. It was just a huge hangar in an industrial zone," he said.

The next day, July 28, on the eve of the attack, Verengotov noticed unusual activity. Guards reinforced the barbed wire outside and sent a worker into the hangar who "tinkered around near the electrical panels."

Everything caught fire

Verengotov fell asleep about 11:00 p.m. He woke up from the first explosion but didn't immediately understand what was happening.

"I just woke up from some very powerful explosion. I opened my eyes, something was happening, dust, some rustling. Okay, fine. We've basically gotten used to this. I closed my eyes again. Somehow, I got knocked out," Verengotov recalled.

The second explosion was different. He woke up because everything was on fire. His sleeping bag was melting, smoke filled his lungs, and screams cut through the darkness.

Verengotov was lying on the top bunk. The fragments of beds and his comrades' body parts littered the path to the exit. While trying to make his way through, he felt "unbearable pain" in his chest and saw blood.

He could neither stand up straight nor bend.

"It was very painful... I don't remember who dragged me outside," he said.

A "100-meter dash of death" and no help

Now outside, Verengotov found himself in an alley that survivors would later call the "100-meter dash of death."

"There were gates, the way to get out of the industrial zone. But they were closed. All the Russians were behind these gates," said Verengotov.

"The guys who got out of the hangar first ran to the gates and asked for help, for an evacuation. The guards started shooting in the air to get them to move away from the fence, because '[the guards were] going to kill them all now.'"

The prisoners themselves gathered the wounded and those who could move.

"Those who could walk on their own made 'belts' from twisted T-shirts to bandage the arms and legs of those with visible bleeding." Meanwhile, the prison officers stood behind the fence, watching and laughing.

Later, medics from other barracks arrived with minimal equipment, which, "of course, was not enough for everyone." These medics triaged the wounded and "wrote down numbers indicating one's position in line for loading" into evacuation vehicles.

Verengotov, himself wounded, observed the agony around him.

"Guys [wounded in the barracks] were dying in agony right before my eyes," he said, recalling how time seemed to drag on endlessly. "I'm sitting and having these thoughts. I'm thinking, dammit, well, now, that means my time will come soon too... And I'm covered in blood, dammit, completely."

According to Verengotov, many died due to the guards' inaction and lack of assistance.

Human rights activists with the NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights later learned that the attack killed 54 Ukrainian soldiers that night and wounded another 129.

The evacuation proceeded very slowly in an ordinary KAMAZ flatbed truck, carried out according to lists and the severity of injuries.

"If two guys in front of me for evacuation hadn't died, then... well, I definitely wouldn't have made it. I wouldn't have ended up in that [first] KAMAZ," said Verengotov.

The condition of many people worsened as they were transported.

"Several guys didn't make it. Even halfway there, they were already dead. One guy was lying in my arms with a hole in his head. He had such a big hole in his head that you could probably see his brain. He bled to death on my arms," Verengotov recalled.

Irony of fate

The life of Oleksiy Kisilishin, a soldier with call sign "Lev," was also cut short during the "100-meter dash of death."

"Oleksiy's legs were broken and he had a head injury... He died from blood loss," said his father Oleksandr, call sign "Sarmat."

Father and son fought together in the defense of Mariupol and were captured. They were kept in the same barracks until July 27.

"On the morning of July 27, I was transferred to the Donetsk pretrial detention center," Kisilishin recalled. "First to the prosecutor's office, then to a temporary detention facility."

He learned about the explosion in Olenivka from his guards. But at the time nobody told the truth about what happened.

"On the morning of the 29th, I was transferred from the Donetsk temporary detention center to a pretrial detention center. And these guards laughed and said, 'You owe us. Your people shelled Olenivka -- lots of your guys were killed. You're lucky; otherwise you'd have been there too. There were bodies everywhere...' But we didn't know which barracks or who died," Kisilishin said.

He learned about his son's death later after encountering a comrade in captivity.

"Oleksiy turned 26 on July 25. He died on the night of July 28-29," said his father.

The occupiers returned Oleksiy's body to Ukrainian-controlled territory in August 2022.

"Oleksiy's mother was abroad at the time, and I was in captivity. There was no one to provide DNA. The body lay there and waited for a relative to come forward. I was released [from captivity] in September [2022] and did the [DNA] test. Before New Year's, I received confirmation of a match. And in February, we buried him," said Kisilishin.

"Ironically, [Oleksiy] died in Olenivka in the Donetsk Region, and was buried in Olenivka in the Chernihiv Region," he added.

A broken system

The stories of Oleksandr Verengotov, the Kisilishin family and other survivors form the basis for future justice. Their testimonies are now part of a major documentation effort.

In mid-September, the NGO Media Initiative for Human Rights presented Olenivka: Crime. Memory. A Broken System in Kyiv. The book commemorates victims and compiles evidence for future transitional justice.

"Everyone realized how important it is to record the truth,” Maria Klimik, who heads the NGO's department for protecting the rights of military personnel and their families, told Kontur.

The book offers the first detailed account of the evacuation and medical aid after the attack, as well as new findings from the investigation.

Klimik said it also explains "why there are still no definitive results and why the UN mission, which was supposed to work in 2022, never began its work."

According to the authors, the Olenivka attack exposes the failure of international humanitarian law to protect prisoners of war.

"Captivity has only one purpose: to remove a person from participating in combat," Tetyana Katrychenko, head of the Media Initiative for Human Rights and co-author of the book, said in a September Ukrinform report.

"But inhumane conditions, torture, show trials, and executions have nothing to do with this purpose. Russia is systematically and cynically destroying these rules."

Russia has not investigated the massacre or faced accountability for the crime. Ukrainian lawyers have submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court, determined to ensure the world does not forget Olenivka.