Russia finds van with bodies of Ukrainian troops at Azovstal, accuses Kyiv of staging it

Russia’s military forces on Monday, May 30 claimed that its troops have recovered a van with the dead bodies of at least 152 Azov battalion fighters from the Azovstal steelworks that were attached with four mines. These bodies were piled up in the van on orders of the Ukrainian government to stage a provocation against Russia, Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, informed in a briefing. 

Russian defence ministry added that the intelligence was given by the Azov militants during interrogations. The entire battalion of the Azov had surrendered to the Russia’s forces after putting up the last tough resistance from inside the Azovstal facility, which was plummeted with Phosphorus bombs by the invading Moscow’s troops. The incendiary munitions are internationally banned from being used in civilian areas. 

"In a van with a non-working cooling system, 152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stored," Konashenkov informed at the briefing on May 30.  

Act committed to accuse Russian Federation of war crimes: Moscow's DoD

The van with Ukrainian casualties was inspected by Russian sappers, who later found four mines placed under the bodies of the dead Ukrainian soldiers, said Moscow’s defence ministry. It furthermore elaborated that the total mass of the explosive tied to the dead bodies was sufficient to destroy the remains of all the bodies in the van.

Ukraine dumped the bodies of its soldiers for the purpose of the provocation, and later accused the Russian Federation of the crime, and deliberately destroying the remains of the bodies. Ukraine’s regime would later go on to blame Russia’s military for not transfering the bodies of the Ukrainian servicemen to their relatives. The act was staged in order to "save the political" reputation "of the Kyiv regime, and personally [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky,” said Russia’s defence ministry. 

Moscow's DoD stressed that the Azov command had earlier publicly appealed to Zelenskyy to retrieve the bodies of the dead Azov soldiers so that they could be buried in the territory controlled by Kyiv. Ukraine's military staged the scene in order to lay blame on Russia, and no requests from Kyiv to receive the bodies of the dead from Azovstal, said Russia's defence ministry spokeperson.