DONETSK, July 29. /TASS/. The number of those killed in a Ukrainian attack on a penal colony in Yelenovka where POWs were being held has increased to 53 with 75 sustaining wounds, according to the DPR’s territorial defense headquarters.

"As a result of an overnight shelling by the Ukrainian armed formations of the premises of the Volnovakha penal colony No. 120 […] in the Yelenovka populated locality where Ukrainian POWs are being held, 53 people were killed and 75 were wounded," the statement on the headquarters’ Telegram channel said on Friday.

Earlier, DPR leader Denis Pushilin said that 47 people had been killed in the attack while 75 had sustained wounds of various degrees of severity. According to him, in all, there had been 193 people at the penal colony.

"The criminal Kiev regime is purposefully eliminating the surrendered Ukrainian militants in order to cover up the war crimes committed against civilians in Donbass and by doing so to force others to continue fighting instead of surrendering," the headquarters stressed.

As Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Friday, the strike on the detention facility where Ukrainian POWs were being held, including the militants from the Azov nationalist battalion, was delivered at night using a US-made HIMARS MLRS. Pushilin specified that there were no foreign mercenaries among those killed.