Olenivka Prison Massacre 28th July 2022

“Olenivka July 2022, we remember..“

On 28th July 2025, at the Territory of Terror Museum in Lviv, the Shandro family gathered with Nataliia and Yustyna Pavliuk to open a special exhibition of children's paintings.

The Shandro family forever carry the story of what happened the night of 28th-29th July 2022 in the Olenivka Prison, in Donetsk Oblast. This prison, was run by the ruzzian army and held many of the more than 2,400 prisoners of war (POW) who surrendered in the Azovstahl Steel Plant in Mariupol, on the orders of President Zelensky himself in May 2022. Oleksandr Shandro was one of those POWs and passed through Olenivka Prison just days before the massacre of 28th July. Nearly 150 Ukrainian soldiers were locked inside a warehouse in the prison and the warehouse was blown up with a fire accelerant - 53 died and 75 were hurt. Some of Shandro's comrades were among the murdered soldiers that night.

The family were without a father and a husband and a son for 2 1/2 years. Oleksandr was finally exchanged in October of 2024. Meanwhile Son Kostya (now almost 11) painted every week, with other displaced children from Mariupol, with Nataliia and Yustyna Pavliuk and waited for his father to come home. He painted his father, his very own hero, often. But for the Territory of Terror Olenivka Exhibition, he painted something special: his father and one of his lost comrades, murdered that night, Vladislav Oleksandrovich Volkov, call-sign Easter. Volkov was remembered along with his 52 other victims and 75 injured that evening, 28th July 2025, by the candles spelling Olenivka outside the museum.

Oleksandr and Valdislav's painting by Kostya continues to tour with The Sunflower Dreams Project in exhibitions, globally.

Oleksandr is teaching Kostya to fish.... many soldiers are still in ruzzian captivity....