Ukrainian media outlets Ukrainska Pravda and Censor.NET reported on August 29 that a car belonging to Dmitry Neelov, first deputy head of the Yelenovka penal colony, was blown up in occupied Donetsk overnight. The reports cite sources in Ukrainian intelligence services.
According to preliminary information, an explosive device was planted under the vehicle. Neelov's condition is unknown.
In spring 2026, Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) and the Prosecutor General's Office charged Neelov in absentia with committing war crimes. In July, he was placed under European Union sanctions. The EU Council described him as involved in torture, beatings and humiliation of prisoners at the Yelenovka colony. The EU also holds him responsible for the mass deaths of Ukrainian prisoners of war on the night of July 28-29, 2022.
On that night, an explosion occurred in one of the colony's barracks where Ukrainian prisoners of war were held. More than 50 people were killed and about 100 were wounded. Russian authorities claimed Ukraine struck the colony with HIMARS, but experts and a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights indicated the strike was launched from Russian-controlled territory, possibly with thermobaric weapons.
This is not the first car bombing of a Yelenovka colony official in Donetsk. In December 2024, former colony head Sergei Evsyukov was killed in an explosion. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said at the time it had detained a Donetsk resident suspected of organizing the bombing.