International- Steven Seagal visited the site of a destroyed Ukrainian prison, per Russian media.
- Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of hitting the site, where more than 50 POWs died in late July.
Steven Seagal visited a destroyed prison in Russian-occupied Ukraine on Tuesday, where he repeated Kremlin talking points in his role as an official spokesman.
Footage broadcast by Russian state media showed the actor in the wreckage of a building identified as the Olenivka prison in Donetsk, where in late July more than 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in disputed circumstances.
While Russia accuses Ukraine of hitting the center with US-provided HIMARS artillery, Ukraine blamed it on Russian shelling — in either case, a war crime.
Seagal was there to promote the Russian side, in his capacity as a special representative of Russia's foreign ministry, tasked with US-Russian relations. Seagal, a longtime admirer of Russia and President Vladimir Putin, was given that title in 2018.
"This is where HIMARS hit," said Seagal, according TVZvezda. He went on to suggest that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the hit because one of the soldiers had begun accusing him of war crimes, the outlet reported.
He claimed that the damage on the building "definitely looks like a rocket," the outlet reported. "If you look at the burning and other details, of course it's not a bomb."
Pro-Kremlin Russian TV host Vladimir Solovyov also claimed that Seagal "personally examined" fragments of HIMARS rockets purportedly found there.
Despite Seagal being given access to the site, the International Red Cross Committee seeking to help victims of the attack has not yet been allowed to visit, according to The Moscow Times.
On August 3, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced that he would launch a fact-finding mission, on the request of both Russia and Ukraine, to understand what happened there, according to Ukrinform.
While the footage of Seagal has not been fully authenticated, a BBC image of the site published soon after it was struck is a close visual match with the site Seagal was filmed on. Ukrainian outlet The Odessa Journal also reported the visit.
Seagal, a long-time pro-Russia figure, is filming a documentary about the war in the region, according to a post from Denis Pushilin, a separatist leader in the Donetsk region who is helping Russia attack Ukraine.